IPC poaches ITV chief for new role

IPC Media has poached ITV’s head of marketing, Sam Carter, to fill the new post of marketing director for its women’s weeklies division, IPC Connect.

She will take charge of a portfolio of five weekly titles, including Woman, Woman’s Own, Woman’s Weekly, Now and Chat, as well as fortnightly teenage magazine Mizz and women’s website beme.com.

Carter, who has headed the ITV and, latterly, ITV2 marketing function since 1996, joins the board of IPC Connect on October 16.

“I’m very excited about joining a company with such great ambition to strengthen its brands and brand portfolio further,” says Carter.

Her appointment completes the new senior marketing management structure instigated by group marketing director Philippa Brown earlier this year. Carter will report directly to Brown.

Brown says: “I am delighted Carter is joining us as the first Connect marketing director. Her experience will be invaluable in helping us to maximise the brands’ potential within the Connect portfolio.”

Carter’s move to IPC follows the recent appointments of Capital Radio’s Vijay Solanki as marketing director of IPC Music & Sport and P&G brand director Helen Farquhar as strategic marketing director for IPC SouthBank.

An IPC Media spokesman said the restructuring would put marketing at the top of the company’s business agenda and create a “gold standard” in marketing.

IPC also this week announced that it has appointed Chris Elwell-Sutton, former deputy editor of Ministry Magazine, as the new editor of its dance and club culture magazine, Muzik.