INM chief executive joins board of media group

Independent News & Media group chief executive Robert Pitt has been appointed to the board of the company.

Mr Pitt joined INM from Tesco in September 2014, but was not made a member of the board of directors at that time.

In an announcement to the Irish Stock Exchange, INM chairman Leslie Buckley said the board was "delighted" to appoint Mr Pitt as a director.

“He has been with INM for almost 18 months and has successfully overseen a number of considerable changes in a continually challenging period for the business and for the news publishing sector as a whole. The company now looks forward to Robert’s added positive contribution at board level.”

Mr Pitt, who has a BA in Economics from University College Dublin, has held several senior management roles in the retail sector in Eastern Europe over the course of his career, including chief operations officer of Tesco in the Czech Republic.

For about 20 months, INM had no executive directors on its board.

In June 2015, speaking after the group’s agm, Mr Buckley said Mr Pitt was “new to the company, and there’s a process that one goes through... you earn your directorship”.

Lucy Gaffney, a business associate of INM’s biggest shareholder Denis O’Brien, stepped down from the board last October.