Rafee departs after launching Reuter’s direct-to-consumer online platform in Asia, which followed his earlier rollout of the Reuters.com global consumer offering.
Schmaltz will add oversight of Reuter’s consumer efforts in China and India to his existing responsibilities covering media sales for the region. At present, Reuters is focusing its Asian consumer efforts on Japan, China and India - and has launched Reuters.cn and bought a stake in mainland financial news portal Hexun as part of this strategy.
The development comes after Thomson acquired Reuters in 2007, reorganising the merged company around three business lines: professional publishing, consumer, and news agency. If you look at growth there is certainly more potential for consumer in Asia, confirmed Schmaltz.
China and India are fast growing but highly regulated, so we are putting in a lot of effort, knowing it will take time to develop.
