James Perry leaves Evolve Media to launch pop culture site Fandom in Australia
James Perry has left Evolve Media after seven years to launch entertainment and pop culture fan site Fandom into the Australian market.
Perry: new MD for Fandom Australia and NZ
The former managing director at Evolve Media and current chairman of the Audited Media Association of Australia, left the media company just before Christmas.
Perry stepped into the newly created MD role at Fandom Australia and New Zealand in the last few days. The site is owned by Wikia, the company whose software powers open source sites including Wikipedia.
This seems like a really good hire for Fandom. James is widely regarded as a very accomplished digital executive.
However, it is surprising that Fandom would hire such a hot senior talent given they just recently did a large layoff in the USA and closed their Japanese market, firing all staff. There are also growing rumors among US bankers that their funding round feel out and that the company is not on sound financial footing and may be making some sizable shifts to the business model.
On the other hand, it is presumably a strong property and James should make a big difference to their trajectory in AU. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
James is a gun – good hire.