[Posted on March 27, 2008 - 6:20 PM]
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Last summer, when B2B media exec Nathan Richardson (pictured) returned to New York from a year-plus stint serving as the country director of the International Rescue Committee's operations in Liberia, the former general manager of Dow Jones Online, who was also previously the general manager of Yahoo! Finance, probably could have worked at virtually any media company. After six months of soul searching and seeking advice from a number of media and business contacts, on Monday Richardson is joining ContextNext Media Inc., the publisher of paidContent, MocoNews, contentSutra and PaidContent:UK. Richardson is taking over the CEO spot currently held by paidContent founder Rafat Ali, who will remain the digital media company's chairman and also its co-editor. It was Ali's idea to bring in a new CEO to help the company grow significantly. And it was Greycroft LLC founder Alan Patricof, who serves on ContextNext's board and who led his firm's sub-$1 million Series A round in the company two years ago, who re-introduced Ali to Richardson last fall. (Richardson recalls meeting Ali while working at Dow Jones Online, but the two did not know each other well.)
When they got together in the fall, Richardson says, "It's like we were speaking the same language." One requirement for his next job was that he would "fit in with the people and know that they were rowing the boat in the same direction." He describes his partnership with Ali as a "terrific fit."
It will be Richardson's job to grow the company. "The company is doing fine," he tells Tech Confidential. "It's not like the company isn't breaking even, or isn't making money. But Rafat knows there's an even bigger opportunity."
Richardson has a solid background in building online editorial publications. On his watch, Yahoo! Finance grew from a site that ran 100 stories a day to more than 2,000 and from 10 content partners to 200-plus. He expects partnerships to play an important role in growing ContentNext, which organizes events as well as publishing Web sites.
Acquisitions may play a role, too, and Richardson confirms that the company has cash to spend. "We'll be looking at build-buy-partner opportunities. We're nimble and small enough that we can do things like that, and we have active backers that want to help us do that because they believe in our platform."
Ultimately, what led Richardson to choose a small startup over a large media company may be the same thing that got him to Liberia--and to previous work in Citibank's Emerging Markets and the Peace Corps.
"It came to me after a conversation with the head of a very large media company whom I called for advice on the final decision," he recounts. "He asked me, 'Who do you feel the best about, and where do you feel like you'll make the biggest difference?' " - Mary Kathleen Flynn
See March 27 press release from ContextNext Media
See March 27 interview with Ali and Richardson from Tech Confidential
