Simon Davies named the new Independent commercial chief as Fielding leaves

Davies, who leaves the Standard with immediate effect, will take up his new post within a couple of weeks.

He joined as ad director of the then Evening Standard in October last year. In a restructure in January, Associated Newspapers restructured its sales operations and set up a stand-alone display sales unit for the London Evening Standard. The was led by Davies, a former Mail on Sunday ad director.

Fielding, meanwhile, leaves after just 18 months with the company. She was a surprise appointment to the role in April last year, replacing newspaper veteran Simon Barnes, as the group looked to exploit Fielding's creative experience in driving up commercial revenues.

She was behind such initiatives as The Independent's commercial link-up with Red Bull, through which lifestyle magazine The Red Bulletin is distributed monthly with the Saturday edition of the paper.

She was appointed by Simon Kelner, managing director of the Independent and Independent on Sunday in a major restructure of personnel at the group, which included the promotion of Kelner, the editor of The Independent, to the role of managing director.