Former GateHouse honcho takes over at Boston Magazine

Metro Corp. Publishing, which owns Boston and Philadelphia magazines, said today that Kirk Davis is taking over as its new president and CEO.

Davis was a top executive at GateHouse Media, but left in 2019, just before its merger with Gannett. But he has local roots: He used to run Community Newspaper Co., which owned what became the local GateHouse papers, back in the days when Fidelity assembled that company with dreams of becoming a newspaper force.

Fidelity learned it couldn't simply cut its way to major profits, and sold the company to the Herald's Pat Purcell, who eventually sold to GateHouse, which then bought the south-of-Boston chain Davis had moved to and he stayed and rose from heading up GateHouse New England to becoming CEO at the national company.

Although a couple of city magazines makes up a much smaller media operation than he's used to, Davis sees big things ahead, beyond simply pointing the disposable-income set at the best fish and chips in Boston:

At my last company, we were successful in building a digital advertising agency, a ‘live’ events division, and a consumer marketing agency. That work is relevant here, so this is a great fit.