Reboot at Vice Media as co-founder Shane Smith steps down, his firm battered by harassment reports

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An undated handout photo of Shane Smith, centre, a Vice founder, with rebel fighters in Benghazi, Libya. Photo: Handout

Published: 2:25pm, 14 Mar 2018Updated: 11:15pm, 14 Mar 2018

Vice Media announced Tuesday that co-founder Shane Smith was giving up his position as chief executive, as the youth-oriented digital media group sought to move past recent turbulence.

Vice, whose image has been battered by recent reports of workplace harassment, named television industry veteran Nancy Dubuc as its new CEO.

Smith will remain at Vice as executive chairman and focus on “strategic deals and content development,” according to a company statement.

Smith said the company chose Dubuc because “she is better than me at everything” and the move “allows me to move to executive chairman, where I can concentrate on the only things that I am good at – content and deals.”

Nancy Dubuc, the former head of the A&E Networks, will be Vice Media’s new chief executive as the company tries to rebound from sexual misconduct allegations. Photo: AP

The move marks a significant change for Vice, which was founded in 1994 as a Canadian magazine and grew into an online media group with news websites and television operations, and is valued at some US$5 billion.

Dubuc has been president and CEO at the cable TV group A+E, jointly owned by Walt Disney and Hearst Corp.

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