Telegraph Group appoints Zenith chief as ad director

The Telegraph Group has appointed Zenith Optimedia radio and press chief Jim Freeman as its advertising director.

Freeman, head of press and radio at the media agency, will take up the majority of responsibilities handled by former Telegraph group sales director Chris White-Smith.

White-Smith was made redundant in December together with Telegraph marketing director Mark Dixon. Dixon has been replaced by Katie Vanneck, who joins from Times Newspapers, where she was promotions director.

The appointment is one of the first to be made by new Telegraph executive director David King, who took up his role last week. King joined the company from EMAP, where he was advertising managing director.

Freeman has worked at Zenith Optimedia for 15 years. The agency will now split his role and has promoted Mike Buckley to head of radio and Kelly Harrold to head of press.

The Telegraph ad sales team has just announced £500,000-worth of travel supplements for the next few weeks. These include a 16-page colour supplement sponsored by Cathay Pacific that will run in the Saturday Telegraph on January 22. The supplement faced a possible delay following the Boxing Day tsunami disaster in Asia, but after consultation with travel advertisers it will run as scheduled.