Mitch Dent didn’t initiate discussions about leaving Rogers Media as vice-president of client solutions, but says his departure from the company after 15 years is an amicable one.
“I’ve known for probably the last four or five years that as the businesses restructure and new people come in, at some point in time it will hit a point where I’m not a great fit,” said Dent in a candid conversation with Marketing. “The discussion was initiated by [vice-president of national sales] Al Dark not me, but it was very friendly and cooperative.
“From my standpoint this is a happy ending, but I didn’t initiate the process,” he continued. “The discussions with Al have been friendly and professional, the company has been good to me and is being reasonable now, so I feel pretty good about it.”
Dent, who has been with Rogers since 2000, acknowledged an “element of inertia” can set in when staying with one company too long. “If I’m honest with myself, I think I probably stayed doing the same thing a little too long, and this is a pretty good re-launch [for my career]. I actually feel pretty good about it all.”
Dent’s official last day with Rogers is Dec. 31, though he plans to leave his office by the end of the week. “The customers will be okay and I’ll be okay,” he said.
The veteran sales executive intends to take at least six months off to examine his options before returning to the workforce in the second half of 2016.
“I’m going to look at all sides,” he said. “Coming back into the media business, especially with emerging trends and things like branded content, where I have a lot of background, would probably be the most logical re-entry for me, but I don’t want to close off starting a business or looking to raise some money to buy a business or doing some other things.
“That’s really what I’m giving myself time to look at it in the first half of next year.”
Dent said a role in the entrepreneurial space is a “real possibility,” having served as president of the Today’s Parent Group for 10 years prior to its acquisition by Rogers in 1999. He also worked with a place-based media start-up in the late 1980s.
“I’ve had two runs in the entrepreneurial space, so there’s a pretty decent chance [I’ll return].” While Dent didn’t rule out a return with a big media company, he said he would be “more likely” to seek out an entrepreneurial role.
After joining Rogers as senior vice-president of sales in 2000, Dent was appointed EVP of sales for Rogers Media in 2008, overseeing sales for the company’s broad array of publishing and broadcast assets. He was named VP of client solutions in 2014.
“I was a lucky guy – I got to live the glory days of magazines where for seven or eight years in a row we built share and had great successes. Then when we bought City [Rogers purchased the four City stations from what was then CTVglobemedia for $375 million in 2007] we had a great three or four-year run where we changed the programming mix and had phenomenal 20%-plus growth per year and got to be a much different player quite quickly.”
Dent also spent five years with the packaged goods giant P&G after graduating from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Commerce.
His departure comes at a pivotal time for the traditional media industry, which finds itself buffeted by the twin forces of changing consumer habits and the continued emergence of global content powerhouses.
“To be successful you’ve either got to have a rock-solid Canadian angle, or be competing globally even if you run [the company] out of Toronto,” said Dent. “You’ve got to have a global perspective. It’s a much different scenario that has its challenges.”
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