Bitcoin site CoinDesk poaches Bloomberg exec as new CEO
CoinDesk, the leading trade publication covering bitcoin and blockchain news, has a new CEO, its first: Kevin Worth, former CFO of Bloomberg Digital Media.
While digital currency may be a non-traditional coverage area, the job otherwise looks like an obvious fit with Worth’s background in managing digital content businesses.
In the late 90s, Worth worked in corporate strategic planning at the New York Times. Then he was founding CEO of The Deal, the financial data and news site funded by investment banker Bruce Wasserstein. Worth stayed on for a year after The Deal sold to The Street. He spent the past couple of years as CFO of Bloomberg’s digital and television businesses.
Many recent changes at CoinDesk
Just over 12 months ago, in January 2016, CoinDesk sold to Digital Currency Group, the biggest investment firm in bitcoin and blockchain startups (with investments in over 90), led by Barry Silbert, the founder of SecondMarket. DCG placed its own Ryan Selkis in charge of CoinDesk on the business side, but pledged that Selkis and DCG would have no involvement in editorial decisions at the site.
Selkis was never CoinDesk’s CEO; Worth is its first. He will run business and editorial, the way that a typical magazine publisher would; the site’s editor is Pete Rizzo.
CoinDesk has 13 full-time employees. Last month, the site made its first acquisition: the bitcoin data app Lawnmower. Lawnmower’s historical price data and charts, as well as its staff, got folded into CoinDesk’s in-house research arm (which produces reports such as a new one on blockchains for insurance), a sign it is serious about the information-selling side of its business.
DCG’s main interest in CoinDesk was always for Consensus, its live bitcoin conference in May, first held in 2015. Last year, the event attracted 1,5000 attendees. Worth, from his time at Bloomberg, has seen the growth of live events as a money-maker for publishers. These days, live programming is a vital arm of the business for news organizations like Time Inc, Business Insider, and Re/code.
Under Worth, expect CoinDesk to place further emphasis on two pillars: live events like Consensus, and research reports for a fee. “To me, if you look at where the value in the content marketplace is being created,” Worth says, “it’s live events and business information products. I see an opportunity for CoinDesk to gain a pole position in becoming the must-have, go-to resource for the industry.”
Worth sounds more fired up about events and information than the news side, which is what CoinDesk is for many of its readers: a vital news outlet. He confirms that Consensus, for now, is his “main focus.”
So, moving forward, will CoinDesk look more like a data resource, or a news blog?
“I think it’s a little all-of-the-above,” Worth says. “I can tell you that the playbooks I have had in the past think about having many different audiences, and how to serve all of them. What got me so excited about coming is that it’s pretty much a whiteboard.
Via: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-site-coindesk-poaches-bloomberg-exec-as-new-ceo-120004041.html
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