Media Headliner: Sandell says there is life after Gutfeld at Maxim.(Bruce Sandell of Dennis Publishing)

The consumer managing director must act fast to raise his own profile and that of Dennis Publishing, Alasdair Reid writes.

Given that Maxim is his main charge, Dennis Publishing's consumer managing director, Bruce Sandell, has exactly the sort of background you'd expect. He joined IPC from school and began making his way up the career ladder on the sales side within the company's stable of music titles - first Melody Maker, then Vox, then NME, where he rose to publisher.

At which point, James Brown came into his life. Not for the first time, as it happens - a big fan of 60s and 70s soul, Sandell already had a music collection featuring much of the oeuvre of the Godfather of Soul. The James Brown of more recent notoriety was at this stage the NME features editor and was preparing to launch the epoch-defining Loaded. Sandell joined the launch team and later followed Brown when he branched out on his own at I Feel Good.

It's all there. Boxes ticked. So it's somewhat surprising to find that Sandell has yet to win over great swathes of the ad industry. The kindest way they have of putting it is that he's yet to emerge from the shadow of Maxim's recently departed (actually, he's technically still in the job until 24 May) editor, Greg Gutfeld. Now they're keener than ever to see what he's made of.

Before his recent promotion, Sandell was the group publishing director of a consumer magazine stable including Maxim, Men's Fitness, Viz and Bizarre. Now, with his new job title, he also assumes responsibility for the group's gambling titles. From an inward-facing point of view, it's not much of a stretch; but from a customer-facing, broader-world perspective, it entails a huge leap. He has to raise his and Dennis Publishing's profile - and do it soon.

His priority is the appointment of a new Maxim editor - and he reveals he will be looking beyond the usual suspects who have done time on men's titles. As Sandell puts it: 'We have some very strong internal candidates and there are some obvious external candidates but I think the men's magazine market has suffered in the past from not looking further afield.'

Agencies say they genuinely miss Gutfeld, if only for the fact he came along to presentations and kept everyone thoroughly entertained. But they also concede that Maxim's problems run deeper than a senior editorial appointment, no matter how inspired.