A+E Exec Kate Gutman Joins Gannett's USA Today Network as Head of Content Ventures

Kate Gutman has left A+E Networks to join Gannett’s USA Today Network in the newly created role of head of content ventures.

Gutman will oversee the company’s non-news content brands and experiences (outside of USA Today and Gannett’s 109 local news publications), which include food-blog network Grateful Ventures; sports site For The Win; product reviews site Reviewed.com; and feel-good video brands Humankind and Animalkind. She’s based in New York and reports directly to Maribel Perez Wadsworth, president of the USA Today Network and publisher of USA Today.

Most recently, Gutman was VP of strategy and digital media at A+E Networks International. During her tenure at A+E, she grew the company’s content distribution business and built relationships with over 30 different digital platforms, as well as also launched new digital products and services leveraging the A&E, History and Lifetime channels and content libraries.

After six years at A+E, “I felt that I was looking for a slightly different challenge,” Gutman said, adding that she was interested in working in the U.S. media market. That said, “it’s a similar challenge to what I had with A+E: How does Gannett take their intellectual property and monetize that further? This felt very much in my wheelhouse.”

Gutman “is a forward-thinker with a keen ability to recognize opportunities in today’s media environment and we are excited about the future of our portfolio under her leadership,” Wadsworth said in announcing her hire.

In addition to developing USA Today Network’s niche-oriented digital properties, Gutman also will oversee Gannett’s digital video and podcast studios. She and her team also will support company’s live-events business, which include the High School Sports Awards series (now in more than 20 markets); the Wine & Food Experience in partnership with Martha Stewart; and the Storytellers Project, a live event series featuring first-person stories from communities across the U.S.

Prior to joining A+E Networks in 2012, Gutman led the digital business for Reader’s Digest International and also has held senior digital and business strategy roles at Rodale, Bertelsmann and Lagardere Group. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and an MBA from Columbia University.

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