Sinead Marie Boucher (née O'Hanlon; born 26 June 1970) is a New Zealand journalist and chief executive of Stuff Ltd. On 31 May 2020 she became the owner of Stuff Ltd.

Early life and family

Born in 1970 to Sean and Mary O'Hanlon, Boucher moved with her family from

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

, Northern Ireland, to

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, New Zealand, when she was about three years old. She was educated at

Villa Maria College Villa Maria College is a private Roman Catholic college in Buffalo, New York. It was founded in 1960 by the Felician Sisters. History The college was initially a teacher-training center for sisters in the education apostolate and was establish ...

. After beginning to study law at the

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was ...

, she dropped out and worked at

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

, before returning to Ireland for a time. In 1992, she returned to New Zealand and completed a six-month journalism course at

Aoraki Polytechnic Aoraki Polytechnic was a public New Zealand tertiary education institution. Aoraki Polytechnic's main campus was based in central Timaru, South Canterbury, South Island. It also had campuses offering a variety of programmes in Ashburton, Oamar ...

in Timaru, where she met her future husband, Mark Boucher. The couple married in 2003 and they have three children.

Career

In 1993, Boucher was employed by Fairfax as the North Canterbury branch office reporter for ''

The Press ''The Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand owned by media business Stuff Ltd. First published in 1861, the newspaper is the largest circulating daily in the South Island and publishes Monday to Saturday. One comm ...

'' newspaper. In 1999, Boucher moved with her future husband Mark to London, where she worked for the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' on its website FT.com and at

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

’ London bureau. Boucher returned to New Zealand in 2003 and was appointed as an assistant editor at ''The Press'', working on the newspaper's website. In 2007, she became Fairfax's first group digital editor, working on the Stuff website. In 2013, she became the group executive editor at Fairfax. Boucher was appointed chief executive officer of Stuff Ltd in August 2017. In 2018, she described her priorities as CEO as to not only make a profit, but provide an internal environment for her people to connect and flourish. Her plan was to diversify the company away from a reliance on publishing revenues, to a range of initiatives that would give the company "a more stable and sustainable fate".

Purchase of Stuff Ltd

On 25 May 2020,

Nine Entertainment Nine Entertainment (registered as Nine Entertainment Co. Pty Ltd) is an Australian publicly listed media company with holdings in radio and television broadcasting, newspaper publications and digital media. It uses Nine as its corporate brandi ...

agreed to sell Stuff to Boucher for NZ$1, with the transaction due to be completed by 31 May. Under the terms of the transaction, Nine will retain some of the proceeds of the sale of wholesale broadband business Stuff Fibre to telecommunications company

Vocus Group Vocus Group Limited, formerly known as Vocus Communications, is an international telecommunications company headquartered in North Sydney, Australia. Founded by James Spenceley as a wholesale, business, government and consumer telecommunicati ...

, and ownership of Stuff's Wellington printing press. At the time of the announcement, she said the purchase gave Stuff "a real chance to take our destiny into our own hands and forge a really bright new future". She also said she intended to pursue giving staff the opportunity to purchase a share in the company, and wanted to enshrine the independence of editorial functions from owners i.e. herself and future share-owners.

Awards

In 2012, Boucher was awarded the Wolfson Fellowship prize, the most prestigious journalism prize in New Zealand, which involves a 10-week stay at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boucher, Sinead 1970s births Living people Northern Ireland emigrants to New Zealand People educated at Villa Maria College, Christchurch New Zealand journalists New Zealand chief executives Year of birth missing (living people)