Apologies for Dropping the Ball on Weitzner

I’m sorry. When Steve Weitzner was ousted at CMP and given what I’ll call a “soft landing” as the head of international biz dev, I asked David Levin, CEO of UBM (parent to CMP), point blank if Weitzner was being kicked upstairs or actually promoted. Levin told me that he was being promoted and that the proof would be whether in two months he was doing his job or not. Well, here’s the proof. So, first, apologies for dropping the ball on that. The summer before last I was unafraid to call a spade a spade when Bob Krakoff ousted Mike Marchesano over at what was then VNU Business Media (now Nielsen Business Media). That story was juicy and hard to resist: Krakoff had had his eye on that job from the minute he left Advanstar two years earlier. And Marchesano, no slouch, would have known that. I’ll try to be more on point from now on.

How Could They Let Him Go?

I read an article on Foliomag.com about this. I don’t know much about the contract that Weitzner was under, or what the actual status of his departure was. (I imagine that as time puts distance between the world and this event, I will find out one way or another.) I agree with the article, though. It’s ludicrous for CMP to allow Weitzner to go to a direct rival so soon after completing his tenure as CEO. I talk more about it in this week’s issue of min’s b2b. I also discuss the real significance of the Weitzner move going forward. There are two main points. Don’t be a square: Be a subscriber and read it! (Especially you i-bankers.) For those of you that aren’t subscribers, email me, and we’ll see what we can do: jgreenfield@accessintel.com. And click here to read the Folio article mentioned above.