Corrected: Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett Joins Guardian Media Group Board

Neil Berkett, CEO, Virgin Media

Guardian Media Group has has appointed Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) CEO Neil Berkett as a non-executive director, to give its board some extra hard-headed business acumen as GMG’s media brands face perhaps the toughest period in their history. Berkett has been VMED CEO since 2008 and was appointed COO of the company’s precursor NTL in 2005. GMG will hope his experience in leading Virgin through technological change — Virgin’s fibreoptic broadband network is being upgraded to 50Mbps and beyond — can help steer its Guardian News & Media division, which houses The Guardian and Guardian.co.uk, back towards profitability. In 2008-9 GNM Guardian Media Group made a loss of £89.8 million, including some large non-trading losses. Managers at the GNM publishing unit are this week expected to inform staff of the company’s plans to reverse the deficit.

Disclosure: paidContent’s parent company ContentNext is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Guardian News & Media.

Comments have been disabled for this post