Robin Burgess, one of the very nicest of newspaper owners and publishers, is to step down as chief executive of his Carlisle-based CN Group. He will retire in January 2016 on his 65th birthday.
That gives the group ample time to find a replacement for a man who has spent 40 years with the family-owned group, including almost 30 as chief executive. He will become non-executive chairman, succeeding Lord Inglewood, who will step aside.
The group’s titles include the News & Star in Carlisle and the North West Evening Mail serving Barrow-in-Furness and its surrounding areas.
It also owns one of England’s oldest papers, the Cumberland News, which was founded just before the battle of Waterloo in 1815 as the Carlisle Patriot.
Robin Burgess’s great-grandfather started as a reporter on the paper in the late 19th century, rising to editor and, eventually, buying into the company. His son and grandson succeeded him.
But none of Robin’s offspring, nor those of his sister and his brother Charlie - a veteran Fleet Street journalist, and one-time of this parish - have shown any enthusiasm for their family’s newspaper business.
So a fifth generation of Burgesses will not take over the reins. Instead, the group has appointed a London-based firm of headhunters, Saxton Bampfylde, to find a new chief executive.
