Nik Deogun to Depart CNBC; Satpal Brainch to Oversee Business News Operations

By Brian Steinberg

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Nikhil Deogun, the top editorial executive at , will leave his position at the end of the month, while Satpal Brainch, a veteran of NBCUniversal’s international operations, was named president of CNBC Business News Worldwide, as part of an effort to centralize the cable-news network’s content operations around the globe.

Deogun next month will start as CEO of the Americas for the Brunswick Group, a corporate-relations consulting business. He is a veteran of The Wall Street Journal and has been at CNBC for eight years as senior vice president and editor in chief of CNBC Business Day.

His position will remain open until a permanent replacement in named, said Mark Hoffman, chairman of CNBC, in a memo to staffers Thursday. Until that time, Hoffman added, “Nick Dunn, Lacy O’Toole, Craig Bengtson and Scott Matthews will lead our day-to-day TV operations, reporting to me.”

Brainch’s job, newly created, “is designed to centralize, streamline and integrate our current and future commercial pursuits across media and around the world,” Hoffman said. Brainch joined CNBC in 2007 as Global CFO before moving to Singapore in 2009 to become the President of CNBC Asia.  In 2011, he expanded his oversight to include all of CNBC International, which he led until 2013.  Most recently, Brainch had been part of the NBCU International team as the managing director of distribution and networks, EMEA.  supervising affiliate sales, ad sales, programming, marketing and strategic operations.

CNBC’s conferences and events team and its business development and technical operations units will report to Brainch. Deogun’s replacement and Jay Yarow, executive editor of CNBC Digital, will continue to report directly to Hoffman and work with KC Sullivan, President of CNBC International, who will also report to Hoffman. Brainch will start officially on November 1.