Zach Leonard named The Independent Chief Executive

Cristina Blanaru Business, Digital & Media, Media

Independent Digital News & Media has promoted Zach Leonard into the newly created role of Chief Executive Officer of The Independent.

As CEO for The Independent, Leonard’s remit focuses on the continued expansion of the digital title, particularly amongst its growing North American audience. Recent key hires including Andy Morley, Chief Digital Revenue Officer, and Blair Tapper, SVP of North America, will aid this growth in the US, which has consistently been ranked as The Independent’s largest market for the last three years.

Leonard will continue to build on the successful Advertising, Licensing & Syndication and Reader revenue lines that include foreign language licensing including the launch of Arabic, Turkish, Urdu and Farsi licensed sites earlier this year. Leonard is working closely with John Paton, who was recently appointed Chairman of IDNML.

Leonard joined The Independent and The Evening Standard in 2010 as Managing Director of Digital. He’s driven record audience and revenue growth for the two titles’ digital channels, with both Independent.co.uk and Standard.co.uk holding the position of fastest growing quality news websites in the UK in recent years. In 2016, he led the business transformation of IDNML, following the closure of The Independent newspaper and sale of the i newspaper to Johnston Press. IDNML is the only digital pure-play, truly independent, profitable quality news business in the UK and US.

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of IDNML:

Zach has been an integral part of The Independent as it has become a leading digital news title in the UK, US and across the world. I am confident that his new position will allow him to continue innovating and take us even further.

Zach Leonard:

It has been a tremendous privilege to lead The Independent’s digital transformation so far. I look forward to extending the brand’s influence and commercial success in new territories, languages and channels in years to come. 

ESI Media is the commercial division of the Evening Standard and The Independent. ESI Media has a monthly cross-platform UK reach of 25.5m adults. Evening Standard content is read by 2.5m people every day and the Independent is visited by over 83m global unique browsers each month.