Leadership Q & A

What are Cox Media Group companies doing to remain industry leaders despite a challenging economy?

Being an industry leader comes in many shapes and forms. It is not always necessary to be the biggest, but it is extremely important to be the best. We need to be best in all of our businesses, all of the time — whether it is being No. 1 in news ratings, the leader in advertising market share or the best at running efficient, profitable businesses. We can't control the economy, but we can control our destiny. This is where we are putting our focus.

Sandy Schwartz — President, Cox Media Group

What sets Cox apart from other companies in terms of its commitment to employees?

At Cox, our employees provide excellent service to our customers. It's only fitting, then, that we would make our employees' daily work experience just as rewarding. From offering compelling benefits and training to providing enriching work assignments, these are just a few of the ways we say thanks and recognize our employees every day.  What sets us apart is what I call the essence of Cox—a special camaraderie and atmosphere of mutual respect, a valuing of diversity, an embracing of new ideas, and a genuine concern for each other as people.  This is true even when we have to make difficult decisions.  Our goal is to always treat all employees with dignity and respect through every stage of their time with us.

Deborah Thomas — Vice President, Human Resources, Cox Media Group

What strengths serve your businesses well in challenging times and position them better for the future?

Our disciplined leadership and management skills serve us well. We need to operate our businesses efficiently, recognize our shining stars and nurture our emerging leaders. Also, we must transition some of our legacy businesses when necessary and identify opportunities for all businesses, especially digital opportunities.

Sandy Schwartz — President, Cox Media Group

Cox Cross Media is one of Cox's newest businesses. What is your value proposition to advertisers?

We formed Cox Cross Media in July of 2007 to sell national advertisers space on the 330 local TV sites represented by Cox TV reps. Since then, we have grown to more than 850 local media sites – including TV, radio and newspaper – to offer the largest footprint of local media sites in the industry. We are combining leading-edge technology, quality salespeople and superior content to give advertisers an efficient, simple way to spend money on local media sites while providing local sites the benefit of being sold to national advertisers. We have also developed strong relationships inside of Cox, placing business on Cox TV, newspaper and radio along with Kudzu, Adify and Travelchannel.com in the past year.

Steve Shaw — Senior Vice President, Cox Cross Media

With the formation of Cox Media Group, do you expect to realize new synergies among your newspaper, TV and radio businesses?

The creation of Cox Media Group affords us wonderful opportunities to work together, with our biggest potential in the digital world. We have the assets to aggregate big audiences and to target the sale of those audiences across our businesses. This year will mark a new era of sharing, of collaboration and of capitalizing on opportunities across our media businesses.

Sandy Schwartz — President, Cox Media Group

Cox has experienced a lot of change in the past year.  As the company changes, will there still be room for employees to develop professionally?

Cox Enterprises is all about people. In this tough economy, it might appear that the opportunity for personal growth is closing, but the opposite is true. Now is the time for our employees to shine. Innovation, tough and fair decision-making, and strong, transparent leadership are vital. We will come out of this economy stronger than ever. This will afford individuals who have helped us through the storm more opportunity, not less.

Sandy Schwartz — President, Cox Media Group