3 New Executive Posts Created at The Times

The Los Angeles Times has created three new vice president positions in its advertising and marketing division in order to organize the paper for future growth.

Donna Freed, previously a director of advertising, has been promoted to vice president of advertising, responsible for national and entertainment advertising. Freed, 39, oversees The Times’ extensive entertainment advertising business as well as its national sales offices and national sales staff in Los Angeles.

Lisa Morita, previously director of advertising marketing and planning, has been promoted to vice president of advertising marketing. Morita, 35, oversees all retail and national advertising marketing at The Times and continues to be responsible for departmentwide advertising marketing functions.

A new vice president of retail will be named to oversee the newspaper’s retail advertising business, which is the largest in the country.

The Times generates more than $850 million in advertising revenue annually, giving it one of the largest and most diverse advertising franchises in the newspaper industry, and these promotions “recognize some of the key people who make The Times an industry leader,” said Donald F. Wright, president and chief operating officer of The Times.

“These changes will position us to develop new business through our very successful category focus and, at the same time, align our advertising division to intensely concentrate on bringing new advertising into the various sections of our paper,” Wright said.

In related moves at The Times, Neil Kaplan has been promoted to director of advertising marketing and strategic planning. Nancy Riley has been promoted to director of advertising responsible for entertainment, department stores and fashion advertising. Dan Scholnick has been promoted to director of marketing.

The Times, a unit of Times Mirror Co., is the nation’s second-largest metropolitan daily newspaper.