He spearheaded CTV’s digital efforts at the Olympics, and now Alon Marcovici has another formidable challenge in front of him: stewardship of the Globe and Mail‘s audience intelligence, marketing and sponsorships.

Marcovici will oversee brand and consumer marketing for the newspaper and its digital properties, as well as sponsorships. He’ll also be overseeing an internal initiative to build up the Globe‘s audience intelligence to meet the demands of today’s data-centric media world.

The move might, at first, seem surprising – Marcovici, after all, was the digital whiz on CTV’s much heralded cross-platform media execution for the Games – but, in fact, he says, it’s a return to his roots as a newspaperman.

‘I’m a newspaper guy from the start – I started my career as a sports writer. I’ve got this incredible passion for the concept of news and journalism that goes back, probably 30 years. To not only to come full circle, but to do it at the Globe is pretty great.’

Noting that the Globe‘s marketing is already a well-oiled machine, Marcovici says that his primary focus in his new role will be developing the Globe‘s capabilities in audience measurement and delivering the resulting data to its customers.

‘My goal, and what they approached me about, is really being fiercely customer centric. And not just customer-centric, but data centric,’ he says. ‘I think the next battle in business is data. You see it in all partnerships, in iTunes subscriptions and across the board, primarily in the digital realm. The old adage of, ‘I know 50% of my advertising works, I just don’t know which 50%’ is an outdated cliché and that is what I’m hoping to change.’

Prior to his new role, Marcovici was EVP, digital media, at CTV and VP, digital media, for the Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium. He has also worked in executive roles for the Toronto Board of Trade, the NHL Florida Panthers and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.