Hand joins from The National Magazine Company, where he was has been head of digital for Men's Health for five years.
He will report to Adam Hopkinson, commercial director at IGN Entertainment, and work closely with Luisa Klimcke, consumer sales manager, to drive advertising revenue growth outside traditional games and entertainment clients, such as Debenhams, Porsche and Volvo.
IGN Entertainment claims to have an audience of 5.5 million men aged 18 to 34 across its digital portfolio, following the acquisition of Hearst Digital’s games and entertainment portal UGO in May. It claims to receive 4.5 million unique visitors a month in the UK.
In News Corp’s most recent results, its "other" segment, which includes IGN Entertainment, alongside MySpace and other digital business, made an operating loss in the first three months of 2011 of $165m (£101m).
While the losses were primarily blamed on lower advertising and search revenues at MySpace, which News Corp is expected to offload, it is understood that IGN is a profitable business.
