SCMP appoints new CEO

South China Morning Post Publishers Limited announced the appointment of Gary Liu as the incoming chief executive officer, succeeding Robin Hu, effective 3 January 2017.Liu, 33, is a California native who has lived in New York for nearly two decades, after having grown up in Taiwan and New Zealand. He speaks Putonghua and has a degree in economics from Harvard University.In a blog post, Liu said that apart from the opportunity to take the SCMP global, “my decision to join the SCMP is also deeply personal”.“I’m an Asian-American who has grown up in the West, stuck in the tension of two cultures still learning to communicate with one another. There is a duality of understanding in our current media world; each culture interprets and reports the news through the filter of their own experience. What we need is a new plurality – a global news organisation that fights to bridge this gap of communication and bring a balanced and nuanced understanding of Greater China to the world. I believe the SCMP is that bridge, and I am excited to be part of defining how my children, who will be global citizens, will learn about China in the future.”He joins SCMP from his recent CEO position at Digg, a New York-based online content aggregator. Prior to joining Digg, he was head of labs at Spotify from November 2013 to February 2015."As an influencer and innovator in digital media and someone with roots in Greater China, Gary is the perfect fit to take SCMP's vision -- coverage of Greater China from an Asian perspective for a global audience -- to the next level and show our readers the future of news in the age of mobile and social media," said Joe Tsai, chairman of the SCMP board of directors.Hu, the incumbent SCMP CEO, is returning to Singapore to join Temasek International as joint head of the sustainability and stewardship group but staying on as a member of the SCMP Board of directors."I'm delighted to hand over the baton to Gary, who brings world-class digital expertise, youthful energy and a grasp of the North American market, all of which are indispensable at this stage in SCMP's journey. As the company navigates the complexities of digital transformation, I am confident that under Gary's leadership, SCMP will become a global platform for serious debate on China, the biggest story of our lifetime," Hu said.