Reach appoints Facebook’s Maureen McDonagh as Chief Customer Officer

The owner of the Irish Mirror, Dublin Live and Cork Beo has recruited Facebook industry head Maureen McDonagh as Chief Customer Officer.

McDonagh, who will join Reach in the newly created role at the end of January, will become responsible for the media owner’s data and customer strategy, working closely with the digital teams across Reach titles. She will sit on the senior executive committee and report to new CEO Jim Mullen. McDonagh is Mullen’s first senior executive appointee since he joined Reach in August.

At Facebook, McDonagh is in charge of the client-facing retail team, working with brands including Arcadia, Burberry, Cancer Research, Chanel, Marks & Spencer and Tesco.

She joined the social media platform in 2013 as client partner, retail. Before that, McDonagh spent nearly five years at loyalty card brand Nectar, where she was most recently digital commerce director.

McDonagh said: “I’m enormously excited to be joining Reach at a time when the media industry as a whole is at such an inflection point in terms of how people consume news, the increasing power of the customer and their changing relationship with brands.”

Mullen added: “With her blend of media, ecommerce and customer loyalty experience, Maureen will be perfectly placed to drive our customer-centric vision and targets forward, ultimately helping us to continue to innovate and develop new customer revenue streams.”

In terms of the Irish business, Managing Director of Reach in Ireland Joanne McGreevy said it’s an exciting, strategic move for the company:

“This has been a transformative year for our company and for media publishing in general, especially in terms of trust in media. 

“Our readers and commercial partners are at the heart of our business so I’m looking forward to working with Maureen on a joined up data and customer strategy, with the digital and marketing departments across the entire UK and Ireland operations working closely to drive our customer focused objectives.”