Greater Media ad director wins national honor

Sandy Theo

onathan (Sandy) Theophilakos, ad­vertising director for Greater Media Newspapers, Freehold, has been named Advertising Director of the Year by Suburban Newspapers of America, a nonprofit professional trade association based in Traverse City, Mich. Member­ship includes approxi­mately 2,000 sub­urban newspapers throughout the United States and Canada.

The annual award is presented to an advertising manager who delivers mea­surable results in areas such as revenue growth, retention and development of sales staff, community leadership and the development of new products.

In nominating the advertising direc­tor, who is known to his colleagues as Sandy Theo, Kevin Wittman, publisher of Greater Media Newspapers, said, "In my 25 years in the newspaper business, there have been very few executives with whom I have worked that have had such a profoundly positive effect on a sales organization. Sandy’s two years at Greater Media Newspapers have been marked by en­thusiasm, tough-minded­ness and dy­namic results. Overall rev­enues for our newspaper group were up 11 percent in 2002 over the previous year, and for the first half of 2003, we are tracking at 14 percent above 2002. In addition to the financial growth that we have experi­enced under Sandy’s leadership, our sales department is more professional and better organized than at any time during my tenure, which spans over 10 years."

Prior to joining Greater Media News­papers, a group of 10 weekly newspa­pers with a circulation of over 253,000, Theo has held several senior positions in the industry, including vice president of advertising for The Record, Bergen County, New Jersey’s second largest daily, and publisher of the former daily News Tribune, Woodbridge.

Theo serves as chairman of the New Jersey Newspaper Network, the New Jersey Press Association’s ad placement service, where he has been credited with making significant contributions.

Theo will be honored at an awards banquet Sept. 29 during the SNA Fall Publishers and Advertising Directors Conference in Chicago.