Time Inc. CEO Splits Up News and Sports Group: Report

In a major pre-Christmas shakeup at Time Inc., new CEO Jack Griffin on Wednesday split up the single News & Sports Group that contained Time and Sports Illustrated and appointed two executive vice presidents to head up each of the two newly created groups in charge of the franchises.

Mark Ford was promoted to president of the Sports Group and will also carry the title of executive vice president in the corporation. For the past two years, he had been president of the News & Sports Group that was put in place as part of former CEO Ann Moore’s last major overhaul.

Moore was replaced by Griffin in September and will formally sever ties with the company at the year's end, when she hands off her Time Inc. chairman title to Griffin, as well.

Griffin obviously wants to have his new team completely in place come January.

Ford will be running the Sports Illustrated franchise, which includes the weekly magazine, website, apps, Golf Magazine and SI Kids.

Former National Geographic Society publishing president, John Q. Griffin, has been named president of the newly formed News Group, in charge of Time, Fortune and Money as well as CNNMoney.com and the Life.com Web site. He also becomes an executive vice president moving to the executive suite, which is getting fairly crowded.

Below the top rung in each group, there was some lower level shuffles, too. Former Conde Nast Publisher Kim Kelleher, who was most recently publisher of Sports Illustrated, becomes publisher of Time. Frank Wall, who was publisher of Money, moves into the SI publisher slot.

The incumbent Time Publisher, Brendan Ripp, moves to publisher of Money.