22 American publishing chief executives

John Linwood Battelle is an entrepreneur, author and journalist. Best known for his work creating media properties, Battelle helped launch Wired in the 1990s and launched The Industry Standard during the dot-com boom. In 2005, he founded the online advertising network Federated Media Publishing. In January 2014, Battelle sold Federated Media Publishing's direct sales business to LIN Media and relaunched the company's programmatic advertising business from Lijit Networks to Sovrn Holdings.

Harry Chandler was an American newspaper publisher and investor who became owner of the largest real estate empire in the U.S.

Daniel Louis Doctoroff is an American businessman and former government official. He is the chief executive officer of Sidewalk Labs, a startup company developing technology focused on city life. Previously, he was the CEO and president of Bloomberg L.P., deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding for the City of New York under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, led New York City's bid for the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, and was a managing partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners, a private equity investment firm.

Joni Evans is an American book publisher of over 100 bestsellers, writer, editor, and literary agent. Evans's background and career in publishing includes posts as Senior Vice President of the William Morris Agency (1994-2006), President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster (1977-1989), and Publisher at Random House (1989-1994).

Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. is an American publishing executive and politician, who is the Editor-in-Chief of Forbes, a business magazine. He is the son of longtime Forbes publisher Malcolm Forbes, and the grandson of that publication's founder, B.C. Forbes. He is an adviser at the Forbes School of Business & Technology. Forbes was a candidate in the 1996 and 2000 Republican presidential primaries.

Stephen A. Geppi is an American comic book distributor, publisher and former comic store owner. Having established an early chain of comic shops in Baltimore in the mid-late 1970s, he is best known for his distributing business. Geppi founded Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic direct distribution service in 1982, and has served as the company's head to the present. Diamond Distribution became the successor to direct market pioneer Phil Seuling's distribution dream when Geppi took over New Media/Irjax's warehouses in 1982. He further bought out early-distributor Bud Plant in 1988, and main rival Capital City in 1996 to assume a near-monopoly on comics distribution, including exclusivity deals with the major comic book publishers.

James Alfred (Jim) Guest is an American lawyer, consumer advocate, and politician. From 2001 to 2014, Guest was the president and chief executive officer of Consumer Reports, a position he was appointed to after serving as Chairman of the Board of the Consumers Union from 1976 to 1994, with 21 of those 22 years as chair.

Christie Ann Hefner is an American businesswoman and activist. Hefner served as chairman and chief executive officer of Playboy Enterprises from 1988 to 2009. Hefner is the daughter of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

Hugh Marston Hefner was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles which provoked charges of obscenity. The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953 featuring Marilyn Monroe in a nude calendar shoot; it sold over 50,000 copies.

Joseph Kanon is an American author, best known for thriller and spy novels set in the period immediately after World War II.

William John Keating was an American lawyer, businessman and politician of the Republican party. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1974.

Edward M. Kopko is an American businessman, publisher and author. He is chief executive officer of Mercury Z, an innovation and network engineering company, and chief executive officer and publisher of Bold Business, a global media and technology company. He is the author of the book “Project Bold Life: The Proven Formula to Take on Challenges and Achieve Happiness and Success.”

The Omaha World-Herald is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It was locally owned from its founding in 1885 until 2020, when it was sold to a newspaper chain by its most recent local owner, Warren Buffett, chairman of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway.

Harold Whittlesey "Terry" McGraw III is an American businessman and is the chairman emeritus of McGraw Hill Financial.

Nancy McKinstry is an American businesswoman, now living in the Netherlands. She is CEO and chairman of the executive board of Wolters Kluwer since September 2003, and a member of the executive board since June 2001.

Ann S. Moore was the chairman and chief executive officer of Time Inc. until the fall of 2010. She became the company's first woman CEO when she was appointed to the position in July 2002.

Paul Harvey Peters was the Chief Executive Officer of the Open Access publisher Hindawi from July 2015 to February 2021. He is past Chair of the Board of Crossref and was President of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) from 2013 to 2019. Peters is known for his work as an advocate for Open Access, open infrastructure for Open Science, and research integrity in the published literature.

Janet L. Robinson is an American executive who was the president and chief executive officer of The New York Times Company on December 27, 2004, until she retired on December 31, 2011.

Theodore “Tod” Sedgwick is the former US Ambassador to the Slovak Republic from 2010 to 2015 and President and CEO of Sedgwick Publishing Co. (1987-2010). Since 2015, he is a Fellow at the Transatlantic Center at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Study and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

James Robinson Shepley was an American journalist and businessman who was president of Time Inc. from 1969 to 1980 and was CEO of The Washington Star from 1978 until the paper was shut down in 1981. Shepley was given credit for having expanded Time Inc. into different areas of publishing and into television and video.

David Steinberger is an American businessman, publishing executive, and current Chairman of the National Book Foundation. His career has involved the acquisition, management and sale of a number of publishers and publishing-related companies as well as the application of digital technologies to publishing companies. He previously served as CEO of Arcadia Publishing and CEO of the Perseus Books Group, following leadership roles at Harper Collins..In January 2021 he announced a succession plan at Arcadia, handing over day-to-day management to a successor and moving to Arcadia’s Board of Directors.

Martha de la Torre is an Ecuadorian American publisher and entrepreneur, as well as the co-founder and president of El Clasificado and EC Hispanic Media. In 2000, de la Torre was named Hispanic Business Woman of the Year by the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.