The Guardian owner will appoint David Pemsel as its chief executive

Guardian Media Group, the owner of The Guardian newspaper and websites, has promoted its deputy CEO David Pemsel to chief executive, Sky News reports.

He replaces Andrew Miller, who announced in January he was leaving the company at the end of June 2015. Miller had been in the role since 2010 and worked to implement a five-year turnaround plan with the aim of securing The Guardian's financial future.

Sky News sources say Pemsel saw off competition from "an unidentified UK-based Google executive." Business Insider has contacted The Guardian for comment and we will update this article once we hear back.

Pemsel joined The Guardian in 2012 as its chief marketing officer, having previously worked as a marketing consultant to the company, helping appoint advertising agency BBH, which created the newspaper's award-winning "Three Little Pigs" ad campaign.

He was promoted at the end of 2012 to become Guardian News and Media's chief commercial officer. In 2013, he was promoted once again, and became the publisher's deputy CEO, a move that many people in the industry saw as priming Pemsel for the top job at the company.

Pemsel has overseen several major projects in his time at The Guardian including the launch of a new content marketing division Guardian Labs, launching a Membership scheme for readers, acquiring an events space in London, restructuring the commercial department, and relaunching The Guardian website (which he spoke to Business Insider about earlier this year.)

Commercial highlights have included increasing overall revenue by 3% £215 million ($340 million) for the 2015 financial year. Underlying losses were flat year over year at £20 million ($32 million.)

Prior to joining Guardian News and Media, Pemsel served as the group marketing director for UK TV broadcaster ITV for more than five years. He had also worked at London-based advertising agency St Luke's.