Immediate Media, publisher of the Radio Times and Good Food and the broadcaster of several TV shopping channels, has announced three major appointments to its leadership team.
Alison Forrestal (pictured) is appointed group managing director; responsible for driving digital growth, innovation and strategic development across a portfolio of Immediate’s market leading brands.
Forrestal previously led retail and partnership operations for media at Amazon. Prior to this, she ran a number of businesses for beverage producer Diageo in Russia, America and Australia.
Katy Gotch takes up the new role of director of business development, with a remit to develop Immediate’s M&A strategy, in addition to new product development and incremental revenue growth strategies.
Gotch has previously worked with some of the UK’s leading multi-channel retailers, including EE and Homebase. She served as director of group strategy at the Home Retail Group, where she initiated and drove the development of the partnership between Sainsbury’s and Argos which ultimately led to the £1.2bn take-over of Argos.
Most recently she was director of strategy and customer experience at Sainsbury’s Argos.
Andrew Gabriel joins as group managing director for Immediate TV, overseeing Immediate TV’s shopping channels, Jewellery Maker and Sewing Quarter.
Gabriel has 25 years’ senior experience in marketing and e-commerce for multi-channel retail, private equity and start-up businesses.
Prior to joining Immediate he served as MD of TV shopping channel Ideal World, which was sold to Blackstone Private Equity in 2015.
Immediate Media CEO, Tom Bureau, says: “As we enter the next stage of the Immediate journey, we are focused on growth through M&A and developing our existing digital and e-commerce businesses, on top of our amazing print engine.
“The appointments of Alison, Katy and Andrew bolster our strategic, M&A and e-commerce expertise. They bring a wealth of experience of identifying and delivering new business opportunities to drive growth across multiple platforms, and further strengthen our already talented leadership team.”
