Butler named AP vice president, newspaper markets

NEW YORK — Kate Lee Butler, a business development director for sales and marketing at The Associated Press, has been promoted to vice president of newspaper markets.

Butler will manage AP’s regional vice presidents and domestic bureau chiefs, AP’s member relationships and business development with 1,500 U.S. newspaper companies and their online operations, plus magazines, niche publications and other print markets.

The appointment was announced Wednesday by Sue A. Cross, AP senior vice president for U.S. Media Markets.

Butler succeeds John Lumpkin, vice president of U.S. and Latin America print markets, who retired.

She joined the AP in 2004 as assistant chief of bureau for California and Nevada. In 2005, she moved to the newly created Online Newspaper Group working to develop and market online services.

She has been a business development director for sales and marketing since 2008, focused on developing relationships with the business side of AP member organizations and on coordinating efforts across AP’s sales teams. She also led the team developing and starting the Member Choice program for 2010.

Before joining the AP, Butler was business editor at The Orange County Register in Santa Ana, Calif., where her team won awards from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for breaking news, projects and general excellence.

She has been a senior editor at Bloomberg News in London and a reporter and editor at newspapers in California, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Butler graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she studied economics.