Laurence Mozafari is a ‘digital native,’ who has worked his way up in digital publishing by being a dedicated, creative, passionate, considerate, and savvy editor always driving Digital Spy to be the best it can be. He truly delivers, with the best-ever performance for traffic (+27% YOY), revenue (+28% YOY) and PR pick-up (+162% YOY).

Laurence launched, ran, and grew the brand’s first digital magazine, evolving Digital Spy from a website to a progressive, award-winning brand – all while overhauling the diversity of the brand’s output. Laurence further cemented Digital Spy as the UK’s biggest TV and movies website, passing 1m total social followers and driving the brand to become more than scale. As well as continuing Digital Spy’s first digital magazine exclusively on Apple News+ and increasing its revenue +50% YOY, he also secured and interviews Ant and Dec for a huge exclusive using Reader Awards and GA insights. And when they couldn’t do a photoshoot during lockdown, he devised a slick animated cover.

Laurence arranged the brand’s first-ever photoshoot with Dave Bautista to promote Netflix’s biggest 2021 movie, drove the site to deliver 705 exclusive – with two of the biggest being his own – and appeared on national BBC radio and TV to discuss major entertainment topics. He also spearheaded Digital Spy’s paid internships, lectured at universities, mentored, taught at Media Trust, and continued monthly diversity meetings to analyse and implement ongoing changes. All this culminated in Digital Spy winning Brand of the Year for the first time ever at the 2021 Campaign Publishing Awards.

Laurence focussed on core pillars to deliver best-evers in 2021. He combines core journalistic values with digital strategy to connect with audiences, and his commercially-minded outlook helped increase on-site video revenue (+58% YOY), magazine revenue (+50% YOY), and overall revenue (+28%). He develops colleagues, spotlighting best performance and junior staff’s work in monthly presentations and personally hosting development 1-2-1s for everyone. He pushed to reward successes with promotions for the brand’s rising stars.

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