Stan boss Mike Sneesby the man for new era at Nine Entertainment
Nine’s streaming boss Mike Sneesby now faces daunting task of replacing outgoing chief Hugh Marks.
Mike Sneesby has big shoes to fill when he takes over from outgoing Nine Entertainment boss Hugh Marks on April Fool’s Day.
Nine’s board, chaired by former federal treasurer Peter Costello, has entrusted the 46-year-old boss of its streaming business Stan to lead its broadcasting and print operations as advertising spending slowly rebounds following the coronavirus crisis.
It was a three-horse race for the top job, with Mr Sneesby edging out Nine’s publishing and digital boss Chris Janz and outsider Carl Fennessy, who ran production company Endemol Shine Australia.
Mr Sneesby, who hails from Shoalhaven on the south coast of NSW, is a qualified engineer, and has run Stan for seven years with the group recently delving into sport with its $100m Rugby Australia rights deal, plus rights to Wimbledon and the French Open tennis tournaments.
He said on Wednesday that it was a “true honour” to be appointed to the position of Nine CEO.
“I am honoured to be entrusted with this important role, to be the custodian for many of Australia’s most important, valuable and iconic media brands,” Mr Sneesby said.
“I have worked alongside my colleagues at Nine for many years and I look forwarding to building our future together as we embrace the opportunities presented in the emerging and growing digital future.
“The Nine family is made up of journalists, technicians, producers and so many dedicated to their craft. It will be the honour of a lifetime to lead them.”
Prior to Stan, Mr Sneesby was CEO of online voucher retailer Cudo for 19 months until 2013 and director of strategy and business development at ninemsn, which Nine took full control of in 2013 and subsequently shut.
Mr Sneesby also led the rollout of telecom group Optus’s national ADSL broadband network, and set up Invision IPTV in Dubai for Saudi Telecom and Astra Malaysia’s joint venture Intigral.
He has worked in leadership and consulting positions across digital media, technology and telecommunications in Australia, Asia and the US. He holds an honours degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wollongong and a masters of business administration from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management.
Mr Sneesby said on Wednesday he was “confident” that Stan would continue to grow; it is currently valued at $1bn and has about 2.3 million subscribers.
A new Stan CEO will be appointed in coming weeks, with contenders for that job including chief financial officer and head of strategy Martin Kugeler, chief content officer Nick Forward, chief technology officer John Hogan and commercial director of content Cailah Scobie. The four executives have been at Stan since 2014.
Mr Sneesby takes over from Mr Marks, who has been CEO for more than five years, helping broker its $4bn merger with Fairfax Media in 2018.
The merger brought together Nine and Fairfax’s newspapers and streaming joint venture Stan under one roof, and Fairfax’s near 60 per cent stake in online property listing group Domain. The company has also taken full ownership of radio broadcaster Macquarie Media, which controls a talk network including Sydney’s 2GB and Melbourne’s 3AW.
Along the way, Mr Marks also sold some assets inherited from Fairfax, including its regional and rural newspaper group Australian Community Media, a handful of events businesses and most recently its New Zealand print and digital media business.
There had been some concern within Nine that Mr Sneesby would quit if he didn’t get the top job, but his appointment was well-received by industry analysts.
Martin Currie chief investment officer Reece Birtles said Mr Sneesby’s appointment was “very positive”.
“It’s good to see an internal candidate, particularly given the strong growth profile that we have seen in Stan under Mike’s leadership,” Mr Birtles said.
Mr Birtles expects Nine’s focus to remain on driving growth in digital earnings within Stan, TV and publishing under Mr Sneesby, noting digital represented 40 per cent of Nine’s latest earnings for the six months to December.
“We continue to think this strategy will continue and can drive a re-rating of the share price with digital revenues continuing to increase as a proportion of group earnings,” he said.
Morningstar analyst Brian Han said it was a “sensible, well-credential appointment given Nine’s long-stated strategy to be a more digital-centric media company”.
Nine last week reported a sharp rebound in ad spending across TV and its broadcast video on demand business 9Now from September.
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