Derek Carter is not your typical media executive. The man responsible for developing Emap’s lucrative business-to-business operations is not at all flamboyant, more an old-fasioned suit-and-tie type of man.

Mr Carter, 58, who has worked for the company since 1978, was announced yesterday as Emap’s new chief executive, after the agreement to sell the consumer magazines and radio businesses.

He has led the business-to-business arm, which brings together business magazines, trade exhibitions, conferences and information products, for more than ten years, after 12 years as managing director of Emap Maclaren.

Under Mr Carter’s guidance since 1997, the business-to-business division has grown, with strong brands in retailing, construction, public sector, media and car sectors.

It was Mr Carter who decided to develop the conferencing business by spinning out events under its core magazine brands, something that took him just a few years to build.

Mr Carter’s focus more recently has been on developing the division’s digital offering. Its advance has far outstripped the group’s other businesses, mainly because the nature of a business-to-business operation lends itself more readily to internet subscription services.

As well as successfully introducing paid-for internet sites for Emap Communications’ numerous trade magazine websites, Mr Carter has spent millions of pounds on pure digital assets.

One acquisition he is particularly proud of is WGSN, snapped up for £140 million in 2005. As the leading international online source of fashion and apparel intelligence in the retail sector, WGSN delivers information on trends from the latest catwalks, trade shows, street fashion and retail storefronts. It is a global business with customers in 60 countries and is understood to have proved lucrative for the media group. “To get a season wrong as a designer is cataclysmic,” Mr Carter said at the time of the acquisition. While dealmaking has naturally become part and parcel of Mr Carter’s day-to-day running of the business-to-business operations, he has had little experience orchestrating large deals.

The new Emap, according to sources, will be a platform for consolidation in the business-to-business sector and could eventually see Emap merge with the likes of UBM or Informa. It will be Mr Carter’s responsibility to make sure that this happens. Mr Carter was appointed to the board of Emap last September.

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