MUMBAI: Mark Williams is joining Newscorp as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Europe and Asia. He will be reporting directly to the company's head of Asian and European operations James Murdoch.

Coming in from Sky Italia, where he is the chief operating officer (COO), Williams will be based in London but will remain as a non-executive director on the board of Sky Italia.

Williams replaces Stephen Daintith at News Corp. Daintith is moving to Dow Jones as CFO.

Williams will take over Daintith's duties as CFO of News International as well as acting as CFO across News Corp's operations in Europe and Asia supporting Star TV, Sky Italia and News Corp Europe.

Murdoch said, "I am delighted that Mark Williams will be joining us in London. He has been a key player in the team which has taken Sky Italia from strength to strength, and I look forward to working with him in this new wider role."

Williams said, "I'm extremely excited to be taking on this new position working for James across the breadth of News Corp activities throughout Europe and Asia, ranging from operations in Eastern Europe to the already very successful UK newspaper business. At the same time, I am very proud of the team at Sky Italia and look forward to remaining involved as a member of the board."

Mark Williams joined News Corp in 1996 as CFO of the Australian pay-TV operation Foxtel. In 2000, he assumed the responsibility of CFO for News Corp's newspaper and other interests throughout Australia and New Zealand. In January 2003, he was appointed COO of Sky Italia, based in Milan.