Lark out, Cooney in as Foxtel restructures marketing and sales division

Andy Lark is leaving the Foxtel business and REA Group’s Kieran Cooney is stepping in as part of fresh organisational structure at the pay-TV player.

Foxtel CEO, Patrick Delaney, announced the organisational change today, which will see Foxtel’s sales and marketing functions combined once more, while creating a new product and strategy group.

Foxtel has poached REA Group’s chief marketing and content officer, Kieren Cooney, as its new chief sales and marketing officer. Sky Deutchland’s executive VP of products and marketing, Alice Mascia, will also join Foxtel to lead the new product and strategy group.

Current CMO, Andy Lark, will leave the organisation as a result, and after just nine months in the role. Lark joined Foxtel in January in a role that had already been restructured following the departure of Mark Buckman.

As previously confirmed by CMO, the sales, customer service and experience, business, retail, customer installations and supply chain elements of Buckman’s position were integrated into a newly formed customer sales and service division upon his departure, headed up by executive director, Marco Miranda. Strategy and research were also centralised under the CFO at that time.

In a statement, Lark said he’d done the specific job he’d been tasked to do upon joining Foxtel earlier this year. This included rolling out new brand positioning, launching Foxtel’s 4K channel and unveiling Fox Cricket earlier this month.

“We’ve restored momentum to the Foxtel brand and created experiences that customers are embracing,” Lark said. “What the team has been able to achieve over the past year is just the beginning. It’s been a wonderful opportunity to have played a part in the future of Australia’s leading home entertainment brand.”

Delaney said the realignment of functional teams was a better ways of meeting the company’s strategic goals. The new structure comes nine months after Delaney himself took the reins at Foxtel following its merger with Fox Sports.

“By bringing sales and marketing together, and creating the new product and strategy team, we will have clarity of purpose across the business,” he stated. “I’m delighted to welcome executives of the calibre of Kieren and Alice, who will both be starting in their new roles within two weeks.”

Cooney was appointed REA Group’s first group CMO in March last year. He has more than 20 years’ experience in marketing and telecommunications, and was the CMO of National Broadband Network operator, NBN, from 2011 and 2014. Inbetween this and joining REA, he was MD then CEO of Omnicom (Interbrand).

Cooney will be the fourth marketing leader at Foxtel in a little over two years.

“This is a great time to be joining Foxtel,” Cooney commented. “It has energy, unrivalled content and a real determination to reshape itself for the future.”

Cooney is being supported by senior Foxtel executive, Marco Miranda, who has been promoted to the new role of chief revenue officer. The remit covers all consumer revenue, exclusive commercial venues and ad sales.

Mascia’s team, meanwhile, has responsibility for planning and building Foxtel’s future product sets.

“Since I started my journey in the entertainment industry in 2002, many of my mentors and colleagues in Europe have come from this market and this company,” she said. “They transferred to me their passion to challenge the status quo and for this reason I am grateful and honoured to be given this opportunity.”

Last month, Foxtel also confirmed former Diageo marketing and innovation director, Adam Ballesty, as its new director of marketing for sports.

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