The Mail & Guardian’s holding company, M&G Media Limited, has announced the appointment of Govin Reddy as its new CEO.
A media executive with national and international experience, Reddy most recently served as the deputy CEO of the SABC. He steps into the shoes of Mike Martin, the M&G’s first CEO. Said Reddy: “There are few more exciting and important media opportunities in South Africa today than that of building on the tremendous strengths of the Mail & Guardian newspaper, group and brand.”
Bob Phillis, chair of the South African group and CEO of its major shareholder, the British Guardian Media Group, welcomed Reddy as a “high-level and distinguished candidate to lead the group through the next phase of its development”.
Reddy (55) has been a teacher (at Inanda Seminary in Durban), a trainer (at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism where he served as deputy director) and a broadcasting executive since 1994 when he joined the SABC as one of the new leaders deployed to turn the corporation from a state to public broadcaster.
He achieved this by elevating the status of public service radio at the SABC, making its commercial stations run even more profitably and pouring resources into news and current affairs to quickly give the broadcaster a credibility and authority destroyed by its Broederbond predecessors.
Such a politically charged job was not without its difficulties. Reddy came under fire for his relaunch of Radio South Africa as SAfm and he left the broadcaster last year when he was not appointed CEO.
Now he will lead a group which in many senses is a right fit for him. He shares its proud history of being a loud and campaigning voice against the apartheid government. Banned between 1977 and 1981, Reddy ran a radical bookshop in Durban before going into exile in Zimbabwe where he first gained experience in broadcasting.
He also shares the group’s vision to build on the strong following this newspaper and its online sister – the Daily Mail & Guardian – enjoys on the continent. Reddy will exploit his broadcasting experience and the convergence of technologies to plan a new multimedia future for the group at home, in Southern Africa and on the rest of the continent.
“We will expand both regional and continental coverage,” he said this week.
The suave Reddy cuts a new image for a group which is growing up. What started as a newspaper run on love, talent, two trestle tables and computers which needed a kick to get them working, is set to become a media group of greater significance and size in South Africa.
“I relish the chance to work with such an important and influential media organisation,” said the new CEO this week.