New Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp told roughly 300 employees at a town hall-style meeting Wednesday that the company's executive suite has been a place "where ideas go to die," according to staffers who were present.
"If I have my way I'm going to close that damn thing down," Mr. Ripp said, addressing an audience of managers and executives.
The company, the publisher of magazines such as People and Sports Illustrated, is keenly looking to
Mr. Ripp for clues to its uncertain future. Parent company Time Warner plans to spin Time Inc. off into an independent company early next year, and Mr. Ripp last week became the third Time Inc. CEO in three years.
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'We're not a magazine company, we're a media company'
Incoming Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp rallied the troops at his first meeting for top execs, saying they need to be empowered and work efficiently for the company to succeed once it spins off from Time Warner.
“We
can’t really consider ourselves a magazine company anymore,” he said at the quarterly
management meeting, according to people present. “We’re a media company. If
you’re People magazine, your competition is Facebook, Twitter.”
There
were no big announcements, but Ripp fielded questions from Fortune managing
editor Andy Serwer, then the audience, on a range of topics from acquisitions,
compensation and church-state issues.
