Can Geo makes clean sweep of its circ department

Canadian Geographic has lost the last of its original circulation department staff and has had to bring in "emergency" consultants to keep it running. Erin Rogers-Lay, the Acting Director of Consumer Marketing has left the company. In August, Francine Morris, the Membership Marketing Manager, left. Maureen Murphy, the Vice-President of Consumer Marketing and Operations left in June and Ian McKelvie, Senior Marketing Manager,was terminated last September (along with 6 other staffers), making it a clean sweep.

Brian Master, the former Vice-President of Consumer Marketing for Transcontinental Media, the country's largest consumer publisher, has been brought in to temporarily run the circulation department on a consulting basis and, in an unusual move, he is to be assisted by Paola Cernicchi, currently Vice-President, Client Acquisitions and Retention, at Indas, the magazine's fulfillment house. Cernicchi will be seconded to Canadian Geographic full time until February, when Christina Baird returns from maternity leave.

"There is no remaining institutional memory, or circ experience left," said one source. "No one wants to stay."