BBC Intelligence Veteran Foucat Joins Publisher Hearst

Former BBC Studios Business Intelligence Director Sylvain Foucat has joined publisher Hearst UK as Head of Revenue Optimisation.

Hearst is the publisher of magazines including Good Housekeeping, Elle and Cosmopolitan, and boasts a huge following both off- and online: more than 19.5 million magazines sold each year, an average of 18.7 million UK digital unique users reached per month, and more than 32.5 million followers via social media platforms.

Also joining Hearst are Sarah Newton Boyd as Head of Partnership Solutions, and Joe Grimsdale as Head of Hearst Global Solutions in the UK. The firm recently appointed Alex Unitt as Chief Commercial Officer, bringing together the group's Client & Agency Sales and Brand Diversification divisions under a single leader for the first time. The three will join the company's Commercial Senior Leadership Team.

Foucat (pictured) worked in Financial Analyst roles before a slight sideways move in 2012 to BBC Studios, the Corporation's main commercial subsidiary, which creates content and markets it worldwide. Joining as a Business Intelligence Executive, he was promoted to Manager eighteen months later and Director in 2016. In this role he led a team of nine people across BI and Data Solutions functions, supporting ad sales teams with regular market intelligence, revenue insights, pricing and policies. He also led the design and roll-out of a new BI framework, and fed market analysis, sales and performance data into the division's advertising strategy.

In his new role he will lead Hearst UK's newly formed Revenue Optimisation function, bringing together sales enablement, inventory management, strategy and analytics to strengthen commercial performance across all channels.

Unitt says the appointments mark an important step in strengthening the company's commercial offering and further enhancing the way it collaborates with partners.

Home page: www.hearst.co.uk .