Walker replaces Lori Cunningham, the former AOL (NYSE: AOL) UK strategy VP who announced her exit in May as Johnston’s digital director after two years.

Walker had been MD of Johnston’s digital JP Ventures arm between 2004 and 2006.

That Johnston is also adding the “business development” role suggests a greater focus actually monetising the web, together with Johnston’s core income streams.

The publisher recently tested paywalls on a small number of local titles, but has not gone ahead to full launch.

Johnston’s January-to-June digital income grew 10.9 percent from last year to £10 million this year. But it’s mainly thanks to an outsourcing partnership in which it washed its hands of managing its jobs classifieds in-house and instead gave the task to DMGT’s Jobsite.

More such partnerships seem the order of the day - Johnston has also done a deal with local user reviews site Qype to include reader reviews on its sites.

But unique browsers coming to Scotsman.com were down 18.1 percent from last year during the January-to-June period - the latest in a recent history of declines at the site. The rest of Johnston’s network was up 2.1 percent.

Steve Brown is also being named MD of Johnston’s north division.

Release.