Business News
Hearst Corporation Adds Four Executives to Board of Directors
Monday 12. October 2009 - Hearst Corporation today announced that four executives have been elected to its Board of Directors.
They are:
— George R. Hearst III, publisher of the Albany Times Union
— Richard P. Malloch, president of Hearst Business Media and senior vice
president of Hearst Corporation
— Scott M. Sassa, president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication and
senior vice president of Hearst Corporation
— Steven R. Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers and senior vice
president of Hearst Corporation
The announcement was made by Frank A. Bennack, Jr., vice chairman and chief executive officer of Hearst Corporation, and George R. Hearst, Jr., chairman of the Board of Directors of Hearst Corporation. The elections were effective October 1.
“All four executives are highly skilled leaders in their respective fields who we believe will bring their expertise and strategic visions to the entire company as board members,” Bennack said.
With these elections, there are now 20 members of the Board of Directors, elected by the trustees of The Hearst Family Trust. George R. Hearst III, Malloch, Sassa and Swartz join James M. Asher, Anissa B. Balson, David J. Barrett, Bennack, Cathleen P. Black, John G. Conomikes, Ronald J. Doerfler, Austin Hearst, George R. Hearst, Jr., John R. Hearst, Jr., Stephen T. Hearst, William R. Hearst III, Harvey L. Lipton, Gilbert C. Maurer, Mark F. Miller, and Virginia Hearst Randt on the Board.
Prior to his role as publisher of the Times Union, George R. Hearst III was vice president, associate publisher and general manager of the Times Union, where he provided leadership to the strategic development and marketing areas and information technology departments. He also led several multi-million dollar capital renewal programs at the paper, including the implementation of digital publishing standards and content systems for news and advertising. His experience at the Times Union dates back to 1989 when he joined the company to lead its operational divisions.
Malloch joined Hearst in 1991 as deputy group head of Hearst’s Consumer Book Publishing and Trade Magazine Group. The consumer book business was sold to HarperCollins later that decade and Malloch looked to re-invest the proceeds from that sale to build a fifth large operating group for Hearst. He changed Hearst’s trade publishing strategy and business model, moving the Group toward revenue generated from subscriptions and licensing fees. In consideration of this new strategy, the Group was renamed Hearst Business Media. Today, the business focuses on the automotive, electronics, financial, health care and pharmaceutical industries. Recent key investment acquisitions include: Map of Medicine, Fitch Group and Zynx Health.
As president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication, Sassa oversees the Hearst operating group responsible for the company’s interests in cable television networks, television programming activities, newspaper syndication and merchandise licensing. Sassa has broad digital, broadcast and print backgrounds. Prior to joining Hearst, he served as founder and CEO of Uber, a consumer Internet start-up; CEO-in-residence at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; and president and CEO of Friendster, a top-50 Internet site that pioneered social networking. From 1997 to 2004, Sassa was an executive at NBC, including president, NBC West Coast, where he was responsible for overseeing all of NBC’s entertainment-related businesses; president of NBC Entertainment; and president of the NBC Television Stations division. He joined Hearst in 2008.
In 2008, Swartz was named president of Hearst Newspapers, the operating group responsible for Hearst’s newspapers and yellow pages businesses. He was executive vice president of the Group from 2001. Under Swartz’s leadership, Hearst played a key role in founding the newspaper industry’s consortium with Yahoo!, launching the industry’s partnership with the online real estate company Zillow and forming quadrantONE, a national online sales network co-owned by Hearst, The New York Times Company, Gannett and Tribune. Swartz also led Hearst’s acquisition of a majority stake in Metrix4Media, a Frisco, Texas-based search engine marketing company that now supports the sales efforts of numerous newspaper and yellow pages companies.
Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com) is one of the nation’s largest diversified media companies. Its major interests include ownership of 15 daily and 49 weekly newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle and Albany Times Union; as well as interests in an additional 43 daily and 72 non-daily newspapers owned by MediaNews Group, which include the Denver Post and Salt Lake Tribune; nearly 200 magazines around the world, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Magazine; 29 television stations, which reach a combined 18% of U.S. viewers; ownership in leading cable networks, including Lifetime, A&E, History and ESPN; as well as business publishing, including a minority joint venture interest in Fitch Ratings; Internet businesses, television production, newspaper features distribution and real estate.