Job: chief executive designate, Guardian Media Group
Age: 44
Industry: publishing, broadcasting, new media
Turnover: £751.9m (Guardian Media Group)
Staff: 7,250 (Guardian Media Group)
Salary: £456,000 (including £195,000 bonus)
2005 ranking: new entry
Carolyn McCall, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group's national newspaper division, will succeed Sir Robert Phillis as GMG chief executive on August 1.
Head of its national newspapers since 2000, McCall will oversee a business spanning publishing, radio, magazines and the internet.
In a historic year for the Guardian Media Group, McCall oversaw the transition of both the Guardian and the Observer to the new Berliner format. The papers were well received by readers and critics alike, and the Guardian was named newspaper of the year at the British Press Awards and by the London Press Club.
In her new role as GMG chief executive, McCall will oversee a business encompassing the Guardian Unlimited website, the Real Radio and Smooth FM network of radio stations, the Manchester Evening News and a portfolio of regional newspapers in the north-west, Surrey and Berkshire.
GMG also includes Trader Media Group, publisher of Auto Trader, and one of McCall's tasks in the next 12 months will be to oversee the flotation of a minority stake in the publisher on the London Stock Exchange next year.
The Guardian's network of websites continued to expand this year with the launch of online blogging and analysis site, Comment is free.
Guardian Unlimited was named best newspaper on the internet at the Webby Awards for the second successive year, and best electronic daily newspaper at the 2006 Newspaper Awards for the seventh year running.
McCall is also looking to expand the group's activities in the US, telling this year's World Newspaper Congress: "Our ambition is to be the leading global liberal voice."
She has held senior management positions at GMG for more than a decade, joining Guardian Newspapers as advertising director in 1995, becoming commercial director and then deputy managing director in 1998.
The new chief executive was also appointed to the board of the Scott Trust, the owner of GMG created in 1936 to protect the Guardian's editorial and financial independence.
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