Rajiv Pant, the former New York Times chief technology officer who departed the newspaper for a startup earlier this year, has been appointed chief product, technology and user experience officer at Tribune Publishing, the company announced this morning.
The hires come as Tribune Publishing seeks to burnish its digital bona fides to bolster the online presences of properties throughout the United States. The company now has three New York Times transplants in key digital roles.
Pant reports to Denise Warren, Tribune Publishing’s president of digital. Warren is also a New York Times veteran, having left the company in 2014 amid a reorganization of the Times’ executive ranks.
Before landing at Tribune Publishing, Pant oversaw briefly oversaw technology at Some Spider, a venture “designed to own a network of news sites based off of the blogging platform Cafe.com,” per the Wall Street Journal. In a testimonial for Quartz, Pant wrote that he was attracted by the opportunity to contribute a portion of his equity in Some Spider to charity:
I had been in CTO roles at four major media companies, with accomplishments I was proud of. However, I didn’t want my 3 year old son Fitz Raj to know me for only being a successful corporate executive, but for accomplishing something significant for the greater good.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Pant will continue to advise Some Spider.
Mohit Pandey, who heads up mobile engineering for The New York Times, will be senior vice president of engineering and mobile for Tribune Publishing, according to the announcement.
In Tribune Publishing’s third quarter earnings call earlier this month, Warren announced the company would adopt a metered paywall model in the mode of The New York Times. That change comes as Tribune Publishing is undergoing significant company-wide reductions through buyouts.
This post has been updated.
