Godfrey leaving CEO role at Postmedia after eight years
Former Jays president will stay as adviser until contract expires in 2021
Paul Godfrey is stepping down as chief executive officer of Postmedia Network and will be replaced by Andrew MacLeod, the company announced Thursday.
Godfrey, who turns 80 on Saturday, remains as executive chair, serving as a member of the senior management team and adviser to MacLeod. The announcement came as the owner of the National Post and other Canadian newspapers announced a $1.4-million net loss for the quarter ended Nov. 30.
Godfrey said he intends to maintain day-to-day involvement at Postmedia at least until his employment contract runs out in two years.
“I’m a workaholic by nature,” he told the Star on Thursday. “I enjoy being busy. I love the action. I work probably 14 to 16 hours a day.”
Godfrey walks his dog, Tetley, a chocolate Labrador retriever, on Bay St. at 5:30 a.m. weekdays and works out with a personal trainer twice a week.
“I feel I’m in better shape than when I was in my 40s.”
Godfrey said he plans to keep up his charitable work and may even seek out other business ventures.
He said that, after more than 50 years in public life in Toronto, “blessed with some of the most exciting jobs one could have in a lifetime,” including a stint as president and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays, he has one more item on his bucket list: landing an NFL team for the Toronto market.
“I’m never going to quit until I see the progress I’d like,” he said.
Godfrey, who has been Postmedia’s CEO since the company was founded in 2010, said he recognized more than a year ago that it was time to hand over the reins to a younger man and that he has tremendous respect for MacLeod.
“He is the CEO,” Godfrey said. “I’m there to pitch in.”
Godfrey said the two have worked closely together over the past year and complement each other.
“He is a very bright and capable guy and we have every confidence in him.”
MacLeod, 48, joined Postmedia in 2014 as chief commercial officer after more than 13 years in senior roles at BlackBerry. He was named chief operating officer in 2016 before becoming president in October 2017, a title he still holds.
MacLeod said in an interview that he will maintain Postmedia’s two-pronged strategy of “aggressively reducing expenditures,” while accelerating efforts to grow the Toronto-based company’s digital ad business.
Revenue for the Torontobased publishing group fell to $171.3 million in the quarter ended Nov. 30, from just under $189 million a year earlier, when Postmedia reported a profit of $5.8 million with the assistance from gains on asset sales.
Godfrey has been in the public eye since he ran for alderman in North York in1964 and won. He became chair of Metro Toronto, starting in 1972 for 11 years, and was described by some as the most powerful politician in town.
Remembering a lesson from his mother — “it was better to leave politics two years too early than two seconds too late” — he accepted an offer to enter the media business, becoming publisher of the Toronto Sun in 1984. In 1996, Godfrey put together a group to buy Ted Rogers’ 63 per cent stake in Toronto Sun Publishing Corp. After numerous layoffs, Godfrey’s group sold the Sun to Quebecor Inc., a couple of years later. Godfrey was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1999. He became president of the Blue Jays in 2000 for eight years before returning to the media business.
He was criticized for cutting 800 full-time jobs across Postmedia in 2016 while earning an annual salary of $1.7 million.
He told Toronto Life that the criticism was unfair, pointing out that “there are not too many people in Canada who can run a newspaper chain.”