JOHN PATON JOINS THE BOARD OF EL PAÍS

The CEO and founder of Digital First Media, John Paton, has joined the Board of Directors of the newspaper El País. The incorporation of this new board member reflects the global leadership of the newspaper, and boosts the paper’s capacity to respond to the challenges of new technologies in all areas involving news and  information.

John Paton (Glasgow, 1957) is CEO of Digital First Media., the eighth-ranking newsgroup in terms of Internet audience. It provides consulting services to 75 newspapers and operates 800 digital and online projects, has over 10,000 employees and 61 million customers per month. Paton has developed a successful career in the newspaper industry, where he has been responsible for both print and online divisions in the U.S., Canada, France and Spain. In 1994 he made the move to the Internet. He went on to head the news portal, canoe.com, an icon in his adopted country, Canada. He co-founded Impremedia, the largest news and information company for Hispanics in the US. In April 2009 he was named Editor of the Year by Editor & Publisher. He is a member of the Board of Advisers of the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a board member of the Newspaper Association of America and of the international board of the  International Newspaper Marketing Association. Paton is a graduate of Ryerson University's journalism program and has successfully completed the Finance for Senior Executives program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration.