Rotary Program April 19, 2010
The guest speaker for the Rotary Club of Edmonton meeting for Monday April 19 is John McDonald, Publisher of the Edmonton Journal. When John was appointed Publisher in January 2008 the following article was published describing his thougts and background.
EDMONTON - The Edmonton Journal has a new publisher, John McDonald.
"I want to convey my genuine excitement about my position and the prospects of the paper, about having an important leadership role in shaping the future of a very proud institution and taking it into the multimedia world," McDonald said.
"You want to set the gold standard," he said of The Journal's editorial content.
"I'd like to see us garner broad recognition for our journalistic excellence and product innovation. Besides being the voice of Edmonton and capturing the hearts and minds of our readers, I want The Journal to be one of the most innovative papers in Canada and beyond."
McDonald, 52, replaces Linda Hughes, who retired at the end of 2006.
"John brings a wealth of experience and exceptional business acumen to The Journal," Dennis Skulsky, president and CEO of Canwest Publishing, and Malcolm Kirk, senior vice-president and group publisher prairie region, said in a company memorandum.
"Known for his strong leadership and people skills, John has a proven track record of building high-performance teams and transforming business."
McDonald has long worked in the United States, but said his friends have always called him a "closet Canadian."
His great-grandparents were from Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
McDonald went to grad school in Canada and often holidays in Canada with his family.
"I'm probably one of the few people in Dallas that had a subscription to Maclean's."
Born and raised in Boston, McDonald was editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper. He took a double major in history and Russian language at Boston College, before getting an MA in Soviet and Eastern European studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, graduating in 1983.
He had hoped to be a university professor but there were few opportunities at the time due to cutbacks in Russian history departments, so he pursued an interest in business, taking an MBA at Babson College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1986.
Through the 1990s, McDonald worked for R.H. Donnelley, a pioneer in the Yellow Pages industry and cable TV advertising. He worked his way up through the organization, becoming vice-president of strategic marketing and business development. The phone industry was deregulated at the time, paving the way for intense competition, with competing Yellow Pages directories in most cities.
"To be successful in the Yellow Pages space, it's always a question of who has the richest content, the most relevant content, the most timely content."
In 1997, he was recruited to go to GTE, an early leader in electronic Yellow Pages with Superpages.com. After a series of mergers, the company became Verizon, where McDonald became president of the Mid-Atlantic region, leading a staff of 1,000 with $1 billion US sales from Dallas, Texas.
"I'm a real team player, but I like to win and I have very high standards," he said.
In 2006, McDonald became a private business consultant who did work for the American Cancer Society and developed a marketing strategy for an innovative music school. He had offers to go back into the Yellow Pages business, but was looking for a challenge, something new and something with a civic bent that would also take advantage of his marketing and sales skills.
A headhunter told him about The Journal job and he realized it had everything he was looking for, a job with a higher purpose than simply a singular focus on profit and losses.
His job is to be steward of the paper's continued success, but also to expand its vision, he said. Edmonton is a major player in the global oil and gas industry, and The Journal can be a leading voice of this new center of power. "My belief is the Edmonton Journal can have a larger voice in Canadian politics and global politics."
He's not the type to sit around in his office and is keen to discover the city, he said.
"I'm looking forward to getting really immersed in the culture and enjoying it. I'm very intellectually curious. I love to learn. I'm going to have to jump on the learning curve on so many issues. I'm not the typical American. I understand the Parliamentary system. I follow it, so I'll learn more than I know now, but that part isn't difficult. But I didn't grow up in oil and gas so this is going to be a learning opportunity for me. I think oil and gas is a pivotal issue for the world."
A major challenge is to continue to establish The Journal's well-known newspaper brand on the Internet, McDonald said. "I don't think we're behind the eight ball, but I'd like to see us become even more innovative and more aggressive on the Internet. There's just things you can do online that you can't do with the print product. It allows a much more ongoing, robust dialogue with our readership."
Before applying for the job, McDonald had never been to Edmonton.
"My first reaction is that it's the same latitude as Moscow. For a former Russian (studies) major, if I can't get to Moscow, I can at least get up north."
"I want to convey my genuine excitement about my position and the prospects of the paper, about having an important leadership role in shaping the future of a very proud institution and taking it into the multimedia world," McDonald said.
"You want to set the gold standard," he said of The Journal's editorial content.
"I'd like to see us garner broad recognition for our journalistic excellence and product innovation. Besides being the voice of Edmonton and capturing the hearts and minds of our readers, I want The Journal to be one of the most innovative papers in Canada and beyond."
McDonald, 52, replaces Linda Hughes, who retired at the end of 2006.
"John brings a wealth of experience and exceptional business acumen to The Journal," Dennis Skulsky, president and CEO of Canwest Publishing, and Malcolm Kirk, senior vice-president and group publisher prairie region, said in a company memorandum.
"Known for his strong leadership and people skills, John has a proven track record of building high-performance teams and transforming business."
McDonald has long worked in the United States, but said his friends have always called him a "closet Canadian."
His great-grandparents were from Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
McDonald went to grad school in Canada and often holidays in Canada with his family.
"I'm probably one of the few people in Dallas that had a subscription to Maclean's."
Born and raised in Boston, McDonald was editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper. He took a double major in history and Russian language at Boston College, before getting an MA in Soviet and Eastern European studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, graduating in 1983.
He had hoped to be a university professor but there were few opportunities at the time due to cutbacks in Russian history departments, so he pursued an interest in business, taking an MBA at Babson College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1986.
Through the 1990s, McDonald worked for R.H. Donnelley, a pioneer in the Yellow Pages industry and cable TV advertising. He worked his way up through the organization, becoming vice-president of strategic marketing and business development. The phone industry was deregulated at the time, paving the way for intense competition, with competing Yellow Pages directories in most cities.
"To be successful in the Yellow Pages space, it's always a question of who has the richest content, the most relevant content, the most timely content."
In 1997, he was recruited to go to GTE, an early leader in electronic Yellow Pages with Superpages.com. After a series of mergers, the company became Verizon, where McDonald became president of the Mid-Atlantic region, leading a staff of 1,000 with $1 billion US sales from Dallas, Texas.
"I'm a real team player, but I like to win and I have very high standards," he said.
In 2006, McDonald became a private business consultant who did work for the American Cancer Society and developed a marketing strategy for an innovative music school. He had offers to go back into the Yellow Pages business, but was looking for a challenge, something new and something with a civic bent that would also take advantage of his marketing and sales skills.
A headhunter told him about The Journal job and he realized it had everything he was looking for, a job with a higher purpose than simply a singular focus on profit and losses.
His job is to be steward of the paper's continued success, but also to expand its vision, he said. Edmonton is a major player in the global oil and gas industry, and The Journal can be a leading voice of this new center of power. "My belief is the Edmonton Journal can have a larger voice in Canadian politics and global politics."
He's not the type to sit around in his office and is keen to discover the city, he said.
"I'm looking forward to getting really immersed in the culture and enjoying it. I'm very intellectually curious. I love to learn. I'm going to have to jump on the learning curve on so many issues. I'm not the typical American. I understand the Parliamentary system. I follow it, so I'll learn more than I know now, but that part isn't difficult. But I didn't grow up in oil and gas so this is going to be a learning opportunity for me. I think oil and gas is a pivotal issue for the world."
A major challenge is to continue to establish The Journal's well-known newspaper brand on the Internet, McDonald said. "I don't think we're behind the eight ball, but I'd like to see us become even more innovative and more aggressive on the Internet. There's just things you can do online that you can't do with the print product. It allows a much more ongoing, robust dialogue with our readership."
Before applying for the job, McDonald had never been to Edmonton.
"My first reaction is that it's the same latitude as Moscow. For a former Russian (studies) major, if I can't get to Moscow, I can at least get up north."