Duncan Clark
St. Joseph Communications has announced that Postmedia Network’s Duncan Clark will succeed Ken Hunt as vice-president of its digital operations, effective Jan. 26. The news comes one week after the Toronto media company announced that Hunt would succeed David Hamilton as publisher of its flagship magazine title, Toronto Life.
“[Clark] is somebody that is innovative, gets stuff done and ‘got’ us, in the sense that our strategy is different from that of a lot of magazine companies in Canada,” said Douglas Knight, president of St. Joseph’s media division. “We had a very clear line in how we were approaching growth on the digital and social media side, and Duncan is somebody who gets that.
“There was a natural meshing of visions, and he was clearly someone who was going to fit perfectly.”
Knight initiated talks with Clark during the holiday break, and jokes that he had no Plan B “other than to step out into traffic” if he failed to land him. “I had one candidate,” he said. “I was pretty confident that if Duncan was willing to join us and shared our vision, he would be a perfect fit in our world.”
Clark has spent the past two-and-a-half years as VP of strategic initiatives at Postmedia, where he established Postmedia Labs to develop new products and strategies for the national media company. Its creations include the food-focused Gastropost and EachCoach, a running-themed group.
Knight said Clark’s editorial experience, combined with his digital expertise and work in the start-up space, made him a leading candidate to succeed Hunt. “He has the editorial chops, the digital chops and he’s an innovator,” said Knight.
With St. Joseph Communications, Clark will work with publishers of the company’s portfolio of magazines, including Toronto Life, Fashion and Canadian Family. He will also support the company’s custom content division Strategic Content Labs, which is led by publisher and managing director Doug Kelly, a former Postmedia colleague.
Knight said Clark would be “deeply engaged” with Strategic Content Labs at both the strategic and execution level.
Clark joined the National Post as executive editor of digital media in 2006, and held progressively senior editorial and business development roles with its digital group. He arrived at the Post from the now-defunct Dose, while his early career included roles as sports editor at the Cranbrook Daily Townsman, associate editor at The Daily News in Kamloops, and copy editor at the Vancouver Province.
