Last week Kurt Burnette, one of the big beasts of media, announced a new gig. The former chief revenue officer of Seven West Media is joining Vinyl Group to lead the company’s advertising sales operation.

It was a very big get for Vinyl. It’s not just the contacts that Burnette brings, but the esteem in which he is still held by the agency world. As Ben Willee pointed out in the Mumbrellacast, under Burnette, Seven’s advertising share often outperformed its audience share.

Vinyl being Vinyl, there were curiosities to the announcement. Most obviously, Burnette’s title is Interim (my italics) Chief Commercial Officer although the Vinyl announcement makes it clear that it’s not some sort of consultancy role – he’s actually joined the business.

Precedents for the stepping stone

That made me think of other recent times when the future CEO joined in a less senior role – Michael Stephenson joining ARN Media as chief operating officer before stepping up a few months later; Natalie Harvey joining Mamamia as chief revenue officer before stepping up a few months later; Rohan Lund joining the board of Southern Cross Austereo before stepping up a few months later.

It’s worth remembering that when Vinyl’s publishing circus began with the acquisition of Brag Media in 2023, the original plan was for Luke Girgis to run the publishing arm. Group CEO Josh Simons only stepped in when things went bad with Girgis. That acrimonious exit is still before the courts.

The description of Burnette’s role – “consolidated commercial strategy across advertising, branded content, partnerships and platform revenue” – only covers the Vinyl Media side of the business, not its music tech platforms of Vampr, Serenade and Vinyl.com. Could the plan be a return to that structure, with Burnette to run the publishing business and Simons making a face-saving move back to focus on........

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