Execs & Accounts for February 23, 2004

Forbes.com hired Pat Dignan as East Coast sales director, based in New York, and Gregory Myrick as regional sales manager in Detroit, where the company founded a new sales office.

Dignan joins Forbes.com from Saveur Magazine, where he served as publisher for two years. He also worked in sales and sales management roles with Newsweek, Forbes and Ziff Davis Publications. Myrick was most recently at chemistri (formerly D’Arcy Worldwide), supporting numerous Cadillac lines in senior account management and supervisory positions.

The Online Publishers Association (OPA) named Larry Kramer, chairman & CEO of MarketWatch.com, as chairman for 2004. Kramer was an OPA founding board member, and as such had a major hand in the design of the industry group. Kramer succeeds Chris Schroeder, who stepped down after leaving his post as head of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. Then vice chairman of the OPA, Kramer acceded the chairman’s role temporarily to fill the gap, and has now been validated in the post.

Also new to the OPA’s executive ranks are Treasurer Debora Wilson, chief operating officer of The Weather Channel and TWCi, and Secretary Riley McDonough, VP of sales and marketing at ESPN Internet Group.

The OPA also added several new members in recent months, including ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, CNN.com, Hearst, iVillage, Jupitermedia, MTV.com and Reuters. IndustryBrains, InsightExpress, Eyeblaster, Baird Direct Marketing and Revenue Science joined as associates.

Lycos chose DoubleClick’s DARTmail platform to support its email campaigns. Lycos currently also uses DoubleClick’s Ensemble solution for its campaign management and customer segmentation needs.

“Lycos’ new strategy is focused on connecting people through subscription services. E-mail marketing will be an increasingly important tool for us to acquire users,” said Steve Gross, VP of marketing at Lycos.