Why To some people in the industry, Hibbert is seen as a super-hero; to others, he’s regarded as more of a super-villain. Being chief executive of Polestar is definitely not a popularity contest. But whatever the viewpoint, pretty much everyone will agree that he seems to be imbued with superpowers of some sort. A decade on from when he last topped our Power 100 poll, Hibbert is probably as surprised as anyone that he’s still at the helm of Polestar – after all, he originally predicted that he’d be in the role for no more than five years. As it turns out, he’s done 13 years in the hottest hot seat in print, and one of those aforementioned special powers seems to be boundless energy. “I’ve never come across anyone like him,” reports one colleague. “The energy he manages to put into what he’s doing is phenomenal. People feed off it, and when things are difficult he can make people believe, and take them with him.”
The late BPIF chief executive Kathy Woodward went so far as to describe Hibbert as “dynamite”, and he will no doubt need his formidable energy reserves right now, as things have surely never been busier at the £239m group. It’s about to fire up the two 96pp Goss Sunday 5000 webs that make up the initial tranche of the £50m reinvention of its web offset platform. It’s also absorbed a huge amount of additional work for Time Inc UK in becoming the sole UK print supplier to the media group; and it’s restructuring its existing web offset factories in anticipation of the Sheffield start-up. Owner Sun Capital Partners has bought into the vision – and promised rewards – of the current mega-investment and it’s up to Hibbert and his team to deliver. As one avid Polestar-watcher puts it: “With BGP out of the way, new presses and all of Time Inc’s work, there can be no more excuses.”
The reinvention could even be Hibbert’s swansong – after all, he’s been well-rewarded during his tenure, and could comfortably put his feet up and retire to one of his various properties. But he has unfinished business at the group, says an associate: “I think he wanted to completely restructure Polestar and get it to where it needs to be, and then hand it over. And he’s well on the way to doing that.”
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