London, United Kingdom – 15 April 2021 – The Independent, Britain’s largest quality news brand, today announces the appointment of Richard Langrish as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
Richard is an experienced finance professional with over 25 years of expertise as an international financial executive and management consultant across a variety of sectors. He joins The Independent after 12 years at The Economist, most recently as CFO of Client Solutions and Global Events, where he supported strategic business reviews and implementation, including the operational restructuring of divisions to align with the new business direction.
Richard held a range of previous roles at The Economist in both London and Brussels, covering advertising, circulation, marketing, events, thought leadership and custom content, creation data visualisation, film and audio production and PR. Roles included Finance Director for Advertising, Brands and EuroFinance, where he led the advertising businesses in the US and EMEA, and as Finance Director for The Economist Media Businesses EMEA, where he was the global lead on forecasting and reporting for events and advertising. Richard joined The Economist from The Prince’s Trust, where he was Head of Planning and Performance, following 10 years as a management consultant for PwC. He is a Chartered Accountant with a Master of Arts from the University of Cambridge.
Richard will report to Zach Leonard, Chief Executive Officer, to support The Independent’s global expansion, diversification and growing portfolio of B2B and B2C businesses, building on its ongoing success following a landmark set of financial results which delivered record revenues of £30m (up 12% year-on-year) and profits of £2.7m (up 18%).
Commenting on the hire, Zach said: “Richard joins The Independent at an extremely exciting time of record revenue and profit growth – a trend which continues despite the challenging pandemic backdrop.
Richard’s 25 years of financial expertise across international advertising, subscriptions, events and client solutions, will help drive our strategic priorities, including the expansion of new data-driven services, increased revenue diversification, and international growth.”
