Rodale Inc. Names Scott Schulman as New President

NEW YORK, Oct. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Rodale Inc., the world's leading healthy lifestyle company, today announced that Scott Schulman, who led several business units within Dow Jones & Company for more than a decade, has been named the new president of Rodale. Schulman will report to Chairman & CEO Maria Rodale and begin his new role on October 28th.

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As president, Schulman will be responsible for developing strategy and revenue growth for the company's multi-platform portfolio of world-class brands, which includes Men's Health, Women's Health, Prevention, Runner's World, Organic Gardening, and Bicycling, as well as Rodale Books, Digital, Events, International, and e-tail site Rodale's.

"Rodale has an inspiring mission, compelling content, an impressive customer base, and multiple distribution platforms," said Schulman, who most recently served as president of the Corporate Markets Group at Dow Jones. "I'm thrilled to partner with Maria and the entire Rodale family, as well as its immensely talented brand leaders, to build upon the company's legacy and its unprecedented success of the past year." 

Schulman spent more than 13 years at Dow Jones, joining the global business information leader in 1999 as VP of strategic planning and development. He became president of its consumer electronic publishing unit and publisher of WSJ.com in 2000, where he helped lead a turnaround to profitability through the introduction of several new revenue streams and expansion of the online subscription model for The Wall Street Journal, which was considered a significant breakthrough in the news enterprise industry. After several years as SVP, sales and marketing, for the global Wall Street Journal franchise, he became chief strategy officer and, later, president of financial information services before taking over the corporate markets group in 2010.

"Scott is the right president at the right time for our company," said Maria Rodale, who will continue in her role as an active CEO focusing on broader strategic initiatives and company growth and vision. "He not only understands the business of digital content, but also is comfortable and adept at making the bold moves necessary to significantly drive revenue and profitability. He has a proven track record of managing and growing a broad array of content brands, but just as important, he believes in our mission to inspire and enable people to improve their lives and the world around them."

Schulman joins Rodale in the midst of one of its most successful years in the company's 83-year history. Rodale magazine brands have generated the best print advertising revenue performance ever this year, expecting to post YOY gains of +13% in ad pages and +23% in ad revenue through November. Collectively, Rodale ad pages were up +12% for the first half of the year. In addition to the print success, the company also saw notable increases across Books, International, Events, and Digital divisions—digital audience has reached a record high of almost 32MM unique visitors and digital ad revenue is at a record high of +19% across brands (Q3). Rodale Inc. now reaches a worldwide readership of 75 million. (Sources: PIB, Coremetrics January-August 2013, internal numbers for digital ad spending, GFK/MRI, and publisher's estimates)

Rodale was also the first in the publishing industry to launch its own stand-alone e-commerce business this year, the healthy lifestyle e-tail store Rodale's.

A resident of Scarsdale, New York, Schulman earned a bachelor's degree from Duke University in 1984 and went on to earn his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1988. He then spent more than 10 years in progressively responsible roles with management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, the last five as a partner in its communications, media, and technology practice in New York.

About Rodale Inc. (www.rodaleinc.com)
Rodale is a global lifestyle company with a mission to inspire and enable people to improve their lives and the world around them. Through a broad portfolio of award-winning media properties, Rodale engages with more than 75 million people around the world through multiple distribution channels, including magazines, books, online, mobile, e-commerce, direct-to-consumer, and video. Rodale publishes some of the best-known health and wellness lifestyle magazine brands, including Men’s Health, Prevention, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Running Times, and Organic Gardening, and is one of the largest independent book publishers in the United States with a collection of bestselling titles that include Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, The Kind Diet, Eat This, Not That! and The Honest Life. Widely regarded as a digital leader in the healthy living space with properties such as Fitbie.com and Rodale’s, a healthy lifestyle e-tail store, the company continues to find new ways to connect with audiences across developing technologies. The company is also an established leader in direct-response marketing with more than 27 million active customers in its database.

Contact:

Allison Falkenberry
VP, Brand and Corporate Communications, Rodale Inc.
212.573.0524
[email protected]

SOURCE Rodale Inc.