Patrick Daniel to be interim CEO of new media entity

Veteran journalist Patrick Daniel will return to Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) to head its media business. He will be the interim chief executive of SPH Media Trust, which is to be formed after SPH restructures its media operations, the new company's chairman-designate Khaw Boon Wan said yesterday.

Mr Daniel, 66, had retired in 2017 as deputy CEO of SPH. In his 30 years at the company, he held various roles including editor-in-chief of the English/Malay/Tamil Media Group.

With Mr Daniel's past experience, the transition is expected to be uneventful, Mr Khaw said in a speech to SPH staff.

"I am grateful to Patrick for agreeing to help us out. Like me, he is enjoying his retirement," he noted. "But he has a strong personal interest to see SPH Media succeed."

Mr Daniel said: "I've felt for some time that being a listed company is no longer the best model for SPH media. I've said that on the record. So I'm personally glad this change is happening. I hope SPH shareholders will approve the plan."

Mr Khaw revealed that he himself has suspended his retirement for three years. "I was happy with my retirement, but this is a project that needs to be done, so I'll give it my best shot," he said. "I hope I can accomplish a lot of what I hope to achieve within that three years."

Mr Khaw also told SPH staff that he will begin a search for a new CEO who can take SPH Media into the future as a multilingual digital media organisation.

This person should also be "one who understands both East and West and is Singaporean at heart - and be among the world's best".

At a press conference, he also said the new CEO of the SPH Media Trust that is to be set up should ideally be Singaporean and digitally savvy. "The search will start quite soon. I hope (it will not) take too long, but still, these are not talents which are available easily."

Mr Khaw added that he hopes the search will be completed by next year. "In terms of what kind of people we are looking for, Singaporean or non-Singaporean, I think it would be very hard to get a foreigner to be able to instinctively understand what this Singaporean interest is all about," he said.

"Ideally, therefore, I hope we can find one Singaporean who may not be here today but may be somewhere overseas."

He added that this person should hopefully be digitally savvy or even have actual digital media experience. "We have not started the search yet, but we will be able to assess several weeks or months down the road, to see how likely we will be able to secure such an ideal candidate," he said.

As for Mr Daniel, he said that he will stay for as long as he is needed.

Meanwhile, Mr Khaw said that succession planning is key to any organisation, not just at the leadership level. "Every one of us, every responsible leader at whichever level you are in, has to think about your succession planning," he said.

"The more we can build up a pipeline of potential successors, the stronger and the more resilient the organisation will be."

This is why it is also important to recruit, nurture and attract new journalists, he said. He hopes they can be trained and offered a career which they would stay in, he said.