Ben Heald is CEO of Sift Media, a leading business-to-business publisher specialising in online, interactive professional communities.
Sift has 110 staff, is based in Bristol and had revenues in 2009 of £7m.
Ben was one of the founders of Sift in 1996. He launched AccountingWEB in May 1997, which is now one of the largest online professional publishing businesses in the UK. He also took responsibility for the subsequent launch of AccountingWEB US, BusinessZone, TrainingZone and TravelMole; all similar online publishing businesses.
He acted as the first editor, then community director of AccountingWEB, then Director of Communities for Sift. He also took the lead in raising Sift’s two rounds of external finance in 1999 and 2000. In 1999 he formed PracticeWEB, Sift’s Software as a Service (SaaS) business for the UK accountancy market. He was appointed CEO of Sift in September 2002.
At news:rewired Ben will take part in our panel discussion on business models for online journalism.