Mark Wood's digital Future shock

Future publishes magazines for computer games, cars, cycling, music and photography fans. Its titles include Fast Car, Classic Rock and Guitar World. Wood became a non-executive director in April 2009 and UK chief executive in August 2010.

In July, the company said the faster transition of its US business to a primarily digital model and a reorganisation of its UK business were expected to result in job cuts and one-time cash costs. Future's shares have lost more than 60 per cent of their value this year.

“The recent restructuring which positions the company for its digital future has allowed the Board this opportunity to achieve substantial savings by eliminating an entire tier of corporate overhead,” Future said in a statement.

Wood dismissed speculation that Future might sell off its US business. “There are no plans at all to sell it off,” he said. “On the contrary we are bringing the US and UK operations closer together. My plan is quite clearly to integrate the businesses much more. The US is a very big market for all our digital products, the results of the Apple store sales prove that, but we need to do a lot more.”

Wood joined Reuters in 1976 and was editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2000 when he took charge of the group’s strategic media investments and alliances as managing director of Reuters Content Partners. Between 1977 and 1987 he was a correspondent in Vienna, East Berlin, Moscow and Bonn. He later became chairman and then chief executive of UK television news provider ITN until September 2008. ■