Hearst’s CEO on the company’s dynamic founder, mentorship & journalism
How many century-old companies do you know that are considered cutting edge? Since 1887, the Hearst Corporation has grown to own iconic print and digital brands like ELLE and Cosmopolitan, while owning stakes in media giants like A&E and ESPN. What was once a newspaper business has expanded into an influential company that touches on all areas of media, finance, and business.
This week on KindredCast, we spoke with Steve Swartz, the President and CEO of Hearst. Since 2013, Steve has served in the unique role of leading both legacy and new media brands and a business information conglomerate, in the form of a private company. Here’s what we learned:
1. William Randolph Hearst was successful because he wanted to make a difference.
As the son of a wealthy gold miner and politician, William Randolph Hearst really didn’t have to work for a living. Steve believes that every company is unique in its own way, and for Hearst, it’s the company’s “dynamic founder,” who constantly challenged his business team to search for the next big thing in media.
“He bought afternoon newspapers because he wanted to serve the common man, and the working man’s paper was the afternoon paper,” said Steve. “But he pushed us into magazines. He pushed us into radio before he died. He lived a very long life.” In the last years of his life, William Randolph Hearst bought one of America’s first television stations. To Steve, this marks the founder’s commitment to pushing beyond its comfort zone in pursuit of growth and innovation.
2. Steve credits much of his success to great mentors and his early career as a reporter.
In the early days of his career, Steve Swartz was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he worked with legendary writers and editors like Norman Pearlstine and James B. Stewart. The skill set he built through this work lends itself well to the qualifications for running a media conglomerate like Hearst. “I think that what you learn as a financial journalist is how to analyze things,” said Steve. “You have to sum things up quickly. You have to master a number of different industries. I was fortunate enough to both cover Wall Street, then I was an editor on the front page desk. Then you had to work on synthesizing these big stories that could have come from the foreign bureaus or the Washington bureau.”
Steve eventually expressed a desire to work in the business side of publishing. As a result, he was chosen to lead a new financial magazine developed by The Wall Street Journal and Hearst. That’s how, in 1992, Steve went on to work at SmartMoney Magazine, which ran for 20 years before merging into the popular site MarketWatch.
3. Old friends make great collaborators.
When Steve joined SmartMoney as the launch editor, he met David Carey, who was the launch publisher from Hearst. In nearly 30 years of collaboration, Steve and David built a successful podcast, climbing the ranks of Hearst and eventually helming the company in different ways, with David as the chairman of Hearst Magazines. (If you’re curious about David’s story, listen to Episode 46 of KindredCast).
Recently, David shipped off to Cambridge to become a partner at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, where he is exploring the nonprofit sector. Steve joked that he has two Harvard students in his life: his friend and colleague David, and his son, who is a sophomore.
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Check out Episode 54 of KindredCast, featuring our interview with Steve Swartz, President and CEO of the Hearst Corporation, embedded below or available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
