Another major shake-up as Thomson Reuters disbands dual structure

The company said James Smith, chief executive officer of the professional division, would become chief operating officer immediately. At the same time, the professional and markets divisions are disbanded and will “transition to a set of focused business units” reporting to head office.

Both Daleo and Smith were Thomson Corporation executives when the Toronto-based company bought Reuters in 2008.

“The changes we are announcing today will streamline our organization and enable us to work better across business units to achieve growth and capture operating efficiencies from scale,” said Glocer. “The professional markets in which we operate are marked by increasing collaboration among specialists and Thomson Reuters must operate with the speed and agility needed to serve these demanding professionals.”

Daleo, chief financial officer since 1998, will retire in July 2012 when he turns 63. Stephane Bello, chief financial officer of the professional division, will succeed him as chief financial officer of Thomson Reuters, effective 1 January 2012. Daleo will then serve as vice-chairman of the group until his retirement.

David Thomson, chairman of Thomson Reuters, said: “Bob Daleo has guided the financial operations of the company for more than a decade through three chief executives. Retirement has been anticipated for some time and we shall miss the presence of a trusted and valued colleague. Bob’s contributions to the businesses have been immense. Our evolution into a global electronic information company owes a great debt to him. Bob’s advice and leadership will be sorely missed, but those qualities remain in place over the months ahead to all our benefit.”

“Stephane Bello is the perfect choice to succeed Bob because of his strategic and analytical strengths, proven leadership abilities and deep knowledge of the company and our markets,” said Glocer. “He will work closely with Bob, Jim and me over the next several months to ensure a smooth transition and uphold the high standards of integrity and financial reporting set by Bob Daleo.”

Following the sudden departure in July of Devin Wenig, head of markets, Thomson Reuters promoted Smith, chief executive of the professional division that caters to lawyers, accountants and scientists, to the new role of chief operating officer.

The Financial Times reported that the latest moves take some burden from Glocer, who took hands-on control of markets after Wenig’s exit, which was seen as a sign of the group’s controlling shareholder, Canada’s Thomson family, exerting tighter control.

Glocer told the FT that the split into markets and professional divisions had made sense when Thomson Corporation bought Reuters and needed to concentrate on merging its financial data businesses without distracting its professional units.

“Certainly for the first two years it worked very well like that. This year, I concluded markets wasn’t coming out of the integration the way it needed to and I had to take the first step in July,” he said. “In the perfect world, markets would have been growing faster this year and I would have moved in an orderly way to this structure” in 2012, he said.

The FT said Smith’s promotion could elevate his standing as a possible internal successor to Glocer, who said: “He’s always been in the frame as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not planning to go anywhere.”

In a message to staff, Glocer said his strategic goals were simple: to work better across business units to meet the increasingly complex demands of customers and capture growth opportunities; to leverage Thomson Reuters’ scale and achieve efficiencies by building innovative technology platforms that can be shared across the company; and to square off against competitors as a whole company which is greater than the sum of its parts.

He said the priorities he set in July for the markets division of restarting the sales engine and resetting Eikon in the context of the company’s broader product strategy had not changed, nor had the goal of creating a strong performance culture.

“These last two months acting as both CEO of Thomson Reuters and CEO of the Markets division have convinced me of two important things. First, no matter what labels we apply to our units, we have great people who are eager to work together to better serve our customers and grow our company. Second, this must be a team effort but with clearly defined roles and accountability for performance. I am looking forward to working closely with Jim, Bob, Stephane and our other leaders to achieve success and excellence at Thomson Reuters.” ■