January 12, 2006

Smith takes over Medill’s Media Management Center

Michael P. Smith has been named executive director of the Media Management Center. 

Smith replaced John Lavine, who was appointed dean of the Medill School of Journalism.

Smith and Lavine have worked together since 1991, when Smith joined the Center after a career in journalism. The Media Management Center is an executive education and research center affiliated with Medill and the Kellogg School of Manage-ment. It offers on-campus and company-specific executive education and conducts research on many of the media’s toughest management issues. Smith has led the center’s executive programs and overseen much of its research and operations.

“Michael Smith’s appointment to direct the Media Management Center will enable the center to continue to do the valuable research and executive education that have been its hallmarks under John Lavine,” Dumas said.

“No one is better qualified to take the helm of the Media Management Center than Mike Smith,” Lavine added. “Since we began working together 15 years ago, he has been a major contributing force to the center’s research and executive education programs. He has profound knowledge about how to achieve media quality, and is recognized here and abroad as an expert on how to understand and engage younger media audiences.”

Smith said, “This year especially, we have been telling the media that it is time to innovate. The media are caught in the middle of a generational tidal wave and the impact of digital technology. If that were not enough, the economy and fragmentation of the consumer market are shaking the business models of newspaper, broadcast and magazine companies.”