VNU Is Now Retail-ready
Media division finishes restructuring with hire of Korse and Flynn
By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 1/8/2007
Former IDG World Expo President and CEO David Korse made news one last time in 2006 with the pre-holiday announcement that he and another company's executive were joining VNU Business Media's Retail Group.
The other executive, Joe Flynn, will be vice president of the sports division, while Korse will be vice president and general manager of the merchandise division. Flynn was previously chairman and CEO of a document management company called Auxilio.
The two will report to David Loechner, recently promoted to senior vice president of VNU Business Media's Retail Group. Sam Bundy, former merchandise group president, now will report to Korse and take on "more of a business development role," Loechner said.
He added, "Sam has great market insight. David Korse is an addition to help fan the flames in merchandise. It's a good group with lots of opportunity, and we wanted to make sure there was enough horsepower there."
Bundy did not say what his title would become. "I wouldn't get hung up on titles," he said. "I expect a lot of our titles are going to be changing. We'll hear more about new titles at the beginning of the year."
According to Loechner, most of the changes within the retail group are over. "I can't speak on behalf of Business Media, but the majority of the effort in aligning markets and personnel changes in retail have been done," he said.
Loechner was alluding to a market-focused restructuring of VNU's Business Media unit that began shortly after Bob Krakoff was hired as its CEO in August. Later that month, two merchandise group show directors, Julie Ichiba and Howard Friedman, left the company in what Bundy described as part of a reorganization.
In November, the company officially said it was switching from a media platform-based organization to a market-based structure, replacing exhibition, publishing and online divisions with six market-focused groups: building design, film, marketing, marketing services and travel, music and retail.
Loechner, former president of the sports group, was named head of the retail group at that time. The company needed someone to replace him in overseeing the sports properties within retail, he said, which is why it hired Flynn.
Korse said his duties and responsibilities at VNU will essentially be the same as those he had at IDG World Expo, one of the business units within IDG. "The merchandise group is one business unit that produces events, and I have the overall strategic, tactical and profit-and-loss responsibility for that unit," he said.
Korse said he had been actively looking for opportunities to return to his roots in California, and was "lucky enough to have a couple different options. I'm delighted not only to join VNU, but also to join Bob Krakoff."
The merchandise group includes five events with corresponding Web sites, and one publication. Its twice-yearly ASD/AMD Trade Show — Las Vegas (Nos. 15 and 20 on the most recent Tradeshow Week 200) are VNU Business Media's two largest events.
One of them is coming up Feb. 25–March 1; a smaller, regional version of the show is scheduled Jan. 20–25 in New York. Korse said being able to attend both in his first two months on the job at VNU will help him get the lay of the land in the merchandise business, after focusing on information technology for a decade.
"I don't have a vision for what to do differently, because I'm not yet sure how things work here," he said. "The mission, clearly, is to grow the business ... but the first period of time is getting to know the people."
