WEHCO Media has announced that John Montuori, with his 18-year track record of success in growing advertising revenue for local media, has joined the company as director of new business development.
This new position is primarily responsible for the new advertising business initiatives across the company’s newspaper markets. This senior level position lives at the intersection of sales, training, as well as product and operations — identifying long-term opportunities as well as challenges, and working across the corporate and local leadership team on solutions, while shepherding shorter-term projects to completion.
“It is so refreshing to join a nimble and progressive organization,” said John Montuori, who added: "I love the WEHCO story and I want to tell it with passion to businesses in every community we serve.”
WEHCO Media, Inc., a family-owned company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, owns the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as well as newspapers, magazines, cable television companies and digital marketing agencies in Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Mississippi.
He started his career selling broadcast television at local, regional and national levels. His success was rewarded with promotions to the new business leader in local direct sales at WTNZ, the Fox affiliate in Knoxville, and then became the national sales manager at WVLT, the local CBS affiliate.
Montuori entered the digital space with feet on the street in 2013 with Scripps Digital. The role was acquisition based and focused primarily on strategic prospecting, customer needs analyses, digital strategy proposals and ultimately new business sales. In 2014, he became the digital sales manager over the Scripps Digital team, as well as the multimedia team at the Knoxville News Sentinel.
In 2016, he joined the corporate team as the divisional digital sales manager for all of the EW Scripps Radio properties. In 2019, he was promoted to vice president of digital market development and focused on sales coaching, leadership development and digital product and sales process training.
In 2020, Montuori became a Certified Professional Coach and independent consultant operating as the Sales Academy of Leadership & Empathy. He began partnering with WEHCO Media and the ADG in February of 2020 and has been partnering with them since.
“John’s proven the tremendous value he can bring to our sales organization through his consulting work with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this past year,” said Jay Horton, president of Digital Media with WEHCO. “We welcomed the opportunity to bring him on full-time and work across all of our newspapers. With the program that John delivers, we’re excited for the growth we’ll see with the skill sets of our sales executives, and new, stronger relationships with our local businesses that will result from it.”
