Hearst Hires VP of Talent; Meredith Staffs Up Health Mag | People on the Move
More hires at Time, a new SVP at Condé Nast Entertainment, National Journal names new Hotline editor and more moves this week.

On Wednesday, Hearst announced the hiring of Rachel Kay as vice president of talent, a newly created role that will advance talent recruiting programs across the company.

Reporting directly to Hearst COO Mark Aldam, Kay will work with each of Hearst’s business groups on talent recruitment strategies including advancing inclusion and diversity programs, institutional, on-campus recruiting efforts and compensation management.

Most recently, Kay served as the global leader of partner talent at McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm. Her 15-year tenure at the company also included the role of director of professional development and operations for its Mid-Atlantic office.

“It is vital we establish a larger volume of skilled labor prospects ranging from entry level to professional management resources,” said Aldam. “Rachel has an outstanding track record for recruiting and managing growth-oriented professionals at all levels, and her contributions will be important to our continued growth and success.” 

Here are the rest of this week’s people on the move…

Citing year-over-year growth, Meredith Corp. announced a further investment in its Health brand, increasing the magazine’s paper stock and trim size and bringing on the following new staffers:

• Brendan Smyth returns to Health as publisher after previously holding the same role at the now-shuttered Family Circle. Smyth has held several sales-related roles in a long career at Meredith, and previously served as publisher of Health from April 2018 to March 2019.
• Cheryl Brown, the former editor-in-chief of Allrecipes and most recently of Family Circle, joins Health as executive editor. She succeeds Bethany Heitman, who will remain on as entertainment editor-at-large. Both will report to editor-in-chief Amy Conway. 
• Amber Brenza who was appointed senior digital editor, focused on Health.com. Brenza moves to Meredith from Hearst Magazines, where she worked with Women’s Health as health editor, and prior to that spent about a year at Condé Nast as Snapchat editor for Self.
• Working alongside Brenza as senior digital editor will be Susan Brickell, who had been freelancing for Health.com for about a year and a half. Both Brenza and Brickell will report to Health.com executive editor Dara Kapoor.

Condé Nast Entertainment has brought in former BET and MTV exec Reginald Williams as its new SVP of programming, reporting to CNE president Oren Katzeff. Williams previously spent five years at MTV, most recently as SVP of music programming and five years as SVP of music programming and specials at BET before founding his own video-centric media company, Ambrosia for Heads, in 2015.

Atlantic Media’s National Journal hired Leah Askarinam as editor of its daily news briefing, “Hotline,” as well as “Hotline Wake-Up Call,” editor-in-chief Jeff Dufour announced Thursday. Askarinam arrives from the newsletter Inside Elections, where she has been a reporter and analyst since 2017; prior to that, she was an assistant editor at The Atlantic.

Askarinam replaces Kyle Trygstad, who left last month to head up the news team at Bloomberg Government.

Time announced yet another batch of new hires:

• Stepping in as VP, retail sales and business development is Lisa MacDonald, who arrives from Bauer Media Group USA, where she the past two years in a similar role, overseeing that publisher’s SIP business as well as newsstand strategy for Woman’s World and First for Women. Prior to that, MacDonald spent several years in various retail sales-related roles at Trusted Media Brands.
• Marissa Karlins joins Time as project manager on the brand and content team, where she will manage RFP’s and help execute sales. Karlins arrives from Fusion Media Group, where she served as senior account/project manager.
• Formerly of The Player’s Tribune, Michelle Denhart joins as VP, marketing partnerships, in which role she will lead a team of marketers tasked with developing new proposals for both advertising and consumer products.

Laurel Ruma has been hired by MIT Technology Review to oversee its content solutions division, Insights, as director. In this post, she will manage research projects, white papers and client-commissioned editorial. Ruma brings over 15 years of editorial and custom-content experience to the position, most recently serving as director of custom content for O’Reilly Media.

Academic publisher Wiley hired Danielle McMahan as the company’s new chief people officer, overseeing worldwide human resources operations and people strategy. McMahan arrives from York Risk Services Group, where she spent the last two and a half years as chief human resources officer, and she previously spent three years as VP of global talent at American Express.