NEW YORK, Feb. 21, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Dow Jones & Company (NYSE:DJ) today announced that its board of directors intends to name M. Peter McPherson, 66, chairman of the board on April 18, 2007, when Dow Jones holds its 2007 annual meeting of shareholders. Mr. McPherson has served as an independent director of Dow Jones since 1998.
As previously announced, Peter R. Kann, 64, current chairman of Dow Jones, will retire from the company and the board at the annual meeting. Irvine O. Hockaday Jr. and William C. Steere Jr. will also retire from the board, pursuant to the mandatory retirement policy for directors after reaching the age of 70. The company will nominate John Brock, CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., and Paul Sagan, CEO of Akamai Technologies Inc., among the 16 director nominees standing for election to the board at the annual meeting.
Mr. McPherson said, "I am gratified that the board has asked me to serve in this important role. I look forward to continuing to work closely in this new capacity with my fellow directors, including Rich Zannino, Dow Jones' chief executive officer, and the rest of the company's highly talented management team. The Board believes Rich and his team are successfully executing the right strategy for the digital era. We are working to increase value for shareholders and customers by building on Dow Jones's heritage of journalistic excellence while developing new ways to provide vital business information to today's global audience."
"On behalf of the entire board, I would like to thank Peter Kann, Irv Hockaday and Bill Steere for their years of service to Dow Jones. All three have made significant and lasting contributions to the company, but we would like to express a special debt of gratitude to Peter who has played a vital role in the success of Dow Jones for more than 40 years, including as a distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Wall Street Journal and as CEO of Dow Jones during a 15-year period of unprecedented expansion and development of the company's franchise. And, we are delighted that Mr. Brock and Mr. Sagan will be joining the Board and are confident that they will be excellent directors."
Mr. McPherson is and will continue to serve as president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. From 1993 to 2004, he was president of Michigan State University. For several months in 2003 he took a leave from Michigan State and led a team in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority working with the Iraqi Ministry of Finance and Central Bank. From 1989 to 1993, he held various executive positions at Bank of America, most recently serving as group executive vice president of the Investment Management Group. From 1987 to 1989, he was deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and, from 1981 to 1987, he served as administrator for the Agency for International Development (AID). While administrator of AID he was also chair of the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Prior to that he was a special assistant to President Gerald Ford and managing partner of the Washington office of Vorys, Sater, Seymore and Pease, an Ohio law firm.
Mr. Brock was named president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. in Atlanta in April 2006. He previously was CEO of InBev SA, the largest brewer in the world by volume, after orchestrating the 2004 merger of Interbrew SA with AmBev while chief executive of Interbrew. Mr. Brock is a former chief operating officer at Cadbury Schweppes Plc. He started his career at Procter & Gamble Co. after earning bachelor's and master's degrees in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech. He previously served as a director at Campbell Soup Co. and Reed Elsevier Plc.
Mr. Sagan is president and chief executive officer of Akamai Technologies Inc. He joined Akamai in October 1998, became a director in January 2005 and was named chief executive in April 2005. Previously, Mr. Sagan served as senior advisor to the World Economic Forum. He also was president and editor of new media at Time Inc. and a senior member of the team responsible for the development of Time-Warner's online, cable online, electronic publishing, and Internet publishing activities. Mr. Sagan joined Time Warner in 1991 to design and launch NY 1 News, the cable news network based in New York City. Mr. Sagan is a Trustee of Northwestern University and a graduate of the University's Medill School of Journalism.
About Dow Jones
Dow Jones & Company (NYSE:DJ; dowjones.com) is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Factiva, Dow Jones Licensing Services, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones provides news content to CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.
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