Tom Bureau has announced that he is stepping down from Hubert Burda Media and will be leaving his roles as CEO BurdaInternational and chair of Immediate.
Bureau was the founding CEO of Immediate, now publisher of household name titles including Radio Times, BBC Gardeners’ World magazine and Good Food, in 2011. He worked alongside Exponent Private Equity to merge digital publisher Magicalia with BBC Magazines as well as hobbyist publisher Origin. Immediate aimed to be “a new force in consumer media and publishing” and had a vision of delivering multi-platform high-quality, trusted content and services centred on their audiences’ passions.
With a focus on driving subscriptions and developing new digital products, Bureau led the transformation of the primarily heritage print magazine business to the multi-platform company it is today, with market leading brands producing content and services across digital, apps, video, audio and live events, as well as print, generating growth across all metrics, and picking up plaudits and industry awards along the way.
In 2017, he oversaw Immediate’s successful sale to Munich-based technology and media company Hubert Burda Media, going on to drive a programme of successful M&A to help further accelerate Immediate’s digital growth and revenues, including Good Food, the UK’s No.1 food media brand, and Nutracheck, the UK’s leading nutrition and calorie counting app. Immediate now has over 800,000 digital subscriptions and continues scaling fast. The publisher currently more than 700 people based in offices in Manchester, London, Bristol and Nottingham.
Bureau was appointed CEO of BurdaInternational in 2020, the international arm of Hubert Burda Media, operating in 10 countries across Europe and Asia, with 130 media brands and 2,000 staff. BurdaInternational focuses on content driven businesses, new technologies and ecommerce. His leadership has driven a strategy of digital transformation, operational excellence and focused M&A, which has resulted in profitability tripling. He became chairman of Immediate in 2023 following the appointment of Sean Cornwell as CEO.
In 2024, he was appointed chair of the supervisory board for HR and employee branding company New Work SE, based in Hamburg with around 1,400 employees, and successfully oversaw the delisting of the company from Frankfurt stock market to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Hubert Burda Media.
Hubert Burda Media board of directors member Elisabeth Burda Furtwängler says: “I’d personally like to thank Tom for his outstanding contribution and commitment both at Immediate and Burda. He is a strategic and visionary CEO and chair whose forward-thinking leadership has driven sustainable growth, innovation and transformation across his businesses. He has a purpose driven approach and has created award winning cultures where people feel valued and inspired and great business results have been achieved. His insight, leadership and expertise will be missed.”
Bureau said: “It’s been an amazing journey from founding Immediate with Exponent PE, to the successful acquisition by Hubert Burda Media, and then successfully redeveloping BurdaInternational. I am particularly proud that Immediate, with its pivot to 1st party data, and digital subscriptions, is at the top of its game and thriving. After more than 15 years, this feels like the right time to take a break, before exploring more chair and non-exec opportunities, building on my experience in digital leadership, transformational M&A and cultural development at Immediate and Burda.”
In addition to his roles at Burda and Immediate, Tom is also chair of the board of Frontline Group, the magazine distribution group, and was chair of the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) between 2020-22, having been a member of the PPA board and executive committee since 2012.
