NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press named Senior Vice President Daisy Veerasingham as its chief revenue officer on Tuesday, a new position that will consolidate global revenue operations under one director as the 172-year-old news cooperative widens its customer base beyond traditional media.
Veerasingham has overseen sales across all formats and business units in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia and Asia since 2008, and was promoted to senior vice president for international revenue in 2010. She was a driving force behind the redesign of AP’s video business, including the development of AP Video Hub, the new front-end video platform that includes live channels and third-party video content.
“I have tremendous confidence in Daisy. I think she is an innovative and proven leader and she has driven our international revenue for many years,” said AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. “She is the right person to lead our global revenue team.”
Veerasingham, a British national of Sri Lankan descent, takes on her new role on Jan. 1. She will continue to serve on AP’s Senior Management Committee, one of four women on the seven-member team reporting directly to the CEO. AP’s top editor, corporate counsel and human resources officer are also women.
In her new position, Veerasingham will take on oversight of revenue for North and South America, which was previously handled under Senior Vice President Dave Gwizdowski, whose retirement was announced in September. Gwizdowski had played a key role in expanding AP’s video business, overseeing the rollout of AP Video-US, a service that provides local broadcasters a daily selection of original video from their region.
About 70 percent of AP’s revenue comes from its newspapers and television clients. But Pruitt said corporations, governments, academia and other non-traditional organizations are a growing clientele for AP’s content licensing business. AP has developed other key sources of revenue, including licensing of content from its historical archives and licensing of ENPS, a production system for broadcasters.
AP revenue fell 8 percent to $510.1 million in 2017, a reflection of a shrinking newspaper industry and consolidation among some major online media companies. The AP reported a $74 million net loss, its first since 2012, mostly due to one-time accounting charges related to the federal tax overhaul passed in late 2017.
Veerasingham said aligning the revenue team under one director will help bring consistency to AP’s strategy for meeting the needs of its evolving customer base, including delivering its products and services on more flexible and customized terms.
“If you consider some of the new opportunities, with the new types of customers that we have, the platforms, programming and production companies, they operate from a global perspective,” Veerasingham said. “We need to focus more of our resources, time and effort on working with those types of companies because they want things delivered in a different way.”
Veerasingham, who holds a bachelor’s degree in law, joined AP in London in 2004 as sales director for AP Television News. Before joining AP, she was group sales and marketing director at LexisNexis, and previously held sales and marketing roles at the Financial Times.
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