New York Times names COO Meredith Kopit Levien as its new chief executive

New York Times Co on Wednesday named Chief Operating Officer Meredith Kopit Levien as its new chief executive, effective September  8.

The newspaper publisher said Levien, 49, will succeed Mark Thompson and also join the company's board.

In an interview with the Times, Levien said she would continue to focus on and expand the newspaper's subscription model as advertising revenue continues to fall.

Levien joined the New York Times Co in 2013 as its advertising head after a nearly five-year stint at Forbes. She was named chief operating officer in June 2017.

Thompson, who has been heading the company since 2012, will also step down as a director, the company said.

The company's "subscription-first" business model has helped it weather steep declines in advertising, and it has introduced subscription-based Cooking and Crosswords products to help diversify its audience. The Times' subscription business represented two-thirds of the company's revenue in the first quarter ending March 29.

Its digital business has been a beacon for other newspapers across a struggling industry. At the end of April the Times had more than 6 million total subscriptions across digital and print - with more than 5 million digital-only subscriptions, according to a May 6 news release. The numbers reflected a record high for the company and the U.S. news industry broadly.