Om Malik’s one-year-old media empire continues to grow: it now includes five blogs, a weekly video show and a job listing site. I imagine things are getting a little crazy around the office. Which is why I’m not at all surprised that he’s brought on a seasoned executive, Paul Walborsky, to help him manage and grow the company as its Chief Operating Officer.
Walborsky, who has both operational and deal experience, was most recently a managing director at Hercules Technology Growth Capital. He’s also held senior positions at Lehman Brothers, ING Barings and Swiss Bank Corp.
Walborsky says he will manage the non-editorial aspects of the business – sales, operations, events, etc., and Malik will oversee all editorial for the various properties (in addition to writing full time). The non-writing staff includes just two others at this point – Joanne Wan in business development and Mike Sly, the VP of Sales. The company will be hiring more people in sales and marketing in the near future, he says.
I’m not surprised at all by this move, since I went through it myself. When Om wrote about our hire of Heather Harde as CEO he mentioned how difficult it was to balance what he called “editorial tasks with chief janitorial duties.” It looks like he’s found the right guy to take over those “janitorial duties” for his business, too. Congratulations to the whole team.
In a phone call with Walborsky today, he said the company was planning on raising a new round of financing in the next 3-4 months to add to few hundred thousand they raised a year ago. Walborsky says they may do an internal round just with True Ventures, or bring in a new outside investor. No word on how much they’re going to raise, though.