Kerry Farley named vice president of operations; Lisa Ellis new general manager at Illinois Times.
Yesse! Communications, Inc. Chairman and CEO Craig Hitchcock announced last week the promotion of two employees at the midwestern alternative newspaper chain. Kerry Farley was bumped up from development director to vice president of operations of the chain, and Lisa Ellis is the new general manager at Illinois Times.
Farley was hired in December to implement a new sales approach that he developed with John Cherba while the two worked at Nuvo Newsweekly in Indianapolis. At Nuvo, Farley had steadily moved up the ladder, from circulation manager to classified manager to advertising director. Cherba jointed Yesse! as Bloomington Independent’s general manager after he left Nuvo for a short stint with the daily Indianapolis Star.
While Farley will focus on operations and sales, Hitchcock said he would continue to guide overall strategy, finances, acquisitions and editorial at the five-paper chain.
Hitchcock also announced that Lisa Ellis had been promoted to the newly-created position of general manager of the Illinois Times. With a background in print and broadcast sales, Ellis was hired earlier this year as the Times’ advertising director.
Former Times’ Publisher Simon Mulverhill left the paper in May to take a job as publisher of the AAN-member paper San Antonio Current. The publisher position has been eliminated at the Times, Hitchcock said.
Yesse! owns five alternative newspapers , including Icon (Iowa City), Impact Weekly (Dayton), and the Octopus (Champaign-Urbana), in addition to the Illinois Times (Springfield) and the Bloomington, Ind. paper. All except the Octopus are AAN members.
