Ian Clark exits News International following failure of Project Alesia

Ian Clark, the newspaper executive who was believed to be overseeing the UK launch of News International's ill-fated digital venture Project Alesia, has left the company after 10 years.

Ian Clark: departure follows News International's scrapping of Project Alesia
Ian Clark: departure follows News International's scrapping of Project Alesia

News International's parent company News Corporation planned to launch an aggregated digital news platform for its own newspaper titles and those of third-party publishers, as part of a venture known as Project Alesia.

But the initiative, which was believed to have been overseen in the UK by Clark, was scrapped in October over concerns regarding the running costs of the project, estimated at about £20m.

Clark, who has left News International with no job to go to, said it was "the right time" for him to exit the company. He said: "News Corporation has a lot of interesting projects, but nothing which is right for me right now or for the company."

During his ten years at News International, Clark held a number of senior executive roles, including advertising director of The Sun and senior commercial posts at The Times and The Sunday Times.

However, he is perhaps best-known for his time as managing director of News International's free afternoon paper thelondonpaper, which closed in September last year due to unsustainable costs.

Clark started his career on the media agency side of the industry, spending seven years at Arena BLM, now Arena Media, rising to become managing director.

Topics

Become a member of Campaign from just £88 a quarter

Get the very latest news and insight from Campaign with unrestricted access to campaignlive.co.uk, plus get exclusive discounts to Campaign events.

Become a member

What is Campaign AI?

Our new premium service offering bespoke monitoring reports for your company.

Find out more

Looking for a new job?

Get the latest creative jobs in advertising, media, marketing and digital delivered directly to your inbox each day.

Create an alert now

Partner content