The Media Blog: Rich Tanksley is leaving Pulse – and that somehow makes us sad

You don’t know Rich Tanksley. And frankly, if you’re just a consumer of the media, it doesn’t really matter.

But if you’re maniacally following who’s up and who’s down in the media (which is the entire raison d’etre of our existence here), then he matters to you.

Before Osagie Alonge came to Pulse, and grew (if not built) a team that has made it a definite part of the culture, it was a vast wasteland of harvested stories, aggregation and something dangerously close to content farming. Suddenly, it found a voice, and then a soul, and carved a place.

But it was under Tanksley over almost a year and a half that it finally blossomed into its own.

He has aggressively driven the brand into video, is responsible for hiring the viral ‘The Pulse TV Guy’ or Chuey Chu, drove viral content across its verticals (fuzzy, but they are there), extended its bouquet of media partnerships, deepened its events outreach and essentially built it into a brand that you can be proud of.

Our guys at Pulse say Rich did that.

And if you follow him on social media you can see why: an aggressive curation of talent and news, tweeting directly at writers he needs, attending every event he could find and making his – and Pulse’s presence – known. Immersing himself fully into the culture. Evidently, lusciously, ravenously consuming and defining the culture.

Rich Tanksley YNaijaIn between, he found time to become an actor in Nollywood movies including Remember Me, The Guardian and a series called Husbands of Lagos.

Rich 2 YNaija

He will be leaving in three months, and Philippe Greinacher who is Co Product Manager for Pulse Ghana will take the reins temporarily, but only as Director of Sales and Partnerships, both for Ghana and for Nigeria.

According to the Pulse official announcement, Rich will take on a new role ‘as consultant and ambassador’ during bla bla bla. Which is of course a fancy way of saying ‘we don’t want anyone to see any bad blood. We want this to be neat. No need to attack Rich. Let’s all just move on’.

We have no scoop on what truly happened (yet), but we think Rich has done an incredible job remaking a brand that looked set for disrespect, and making it into a powerhouse for content – straddling both news-as-commodity and Pulse-as-brand.

Take a bow, man. And the next guy is filling big shoes. So let’s see.

 

PS: See anything worth talking about on the ins and outs of the media business in Nigeria on TV, radio, print and online (could be news, tweets, photos, opeds etc) send us a mail on[email protected] titled TMB. Let’s share the insight together! 

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