New Directors Elected at Hearst

NEW YORK, March 26, 2026 - Hearst today announced the election of three new directors to the corporation's board: Mahendra Durai, Hearst senior vice president, chief technology officer; Caroline Hearst Fitzpatrick, advisor at HearstLab and a great-granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst; and Michael J. Hayes, Hearst senior vice president and president of Hearst Television.

The announcement was made by Steven R. Swartz, president and CEO of Hearst, and William R. Hearst III, chairman of the board. With this election, there are now 26 members of the board of directors, elected by the trustees of the Hearst Family Trust.

Durai was named Hearst senior vice president, chief technology officer in March 2021. He partners across Hearst's businesses to build and scale products, modernize platforms and advance engineering capabilities that drive measurable business outcomes. His focus is on incubating and accelerating innovation, transforming enterprise-wide productivity and delivering customer-centric products powered by generative AI. Durai joined Hearst in 2019 as chief information officer, where he led enterprise IT and cybersecurity strategy and advanced the company's digital capabilities.

Prior to Hearst, he served as senior vice president and chief information technology officer at CA Technologies (now part of Broadcom) from 2011 to 2019. Durai led IT and cybersecurity strategy and played a key role in the company's transformation from an on-premise software provider to a SaaS vendor. Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles at BMC Software, including vice president of IT and vice president of consulting. In a P&L capacity, Durai founded and led a global services practice focused on business and IT transformation for Fortune 500 clients.

He holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, and an MBA from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Fitzpatrick has experience across digital commerce, investing and portfolio strategy. She currently focuses on investment portfolio strategy across private and public markets through her family office and serves as a venture and business development advisor to HearstLab.

She previously served as executive director of global online social commerce at The Estée Lauder Companies from 2024 to 2025, where she built and scaled emerging commerce platforms including TikTok Shop and Instagram Checkout across the U.S. brand portfolio. Fitzpatrick's tenure there also included positions as director of third-party platforms and new business development, and presidential management associate beginning in 2019.

Prior to Estée Lauder, Fitzpatrick held multiple roles at e-commerce company Jet (now Walmart.com), including product marketing manager from 2016 to 2018 and senior marketing analyst starting in 2014.
She holds a bachelor's degree in history, cum laude, from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Hayes was named president of Hearst Television in May 2023, following two decades of success in numerous station leadership positions as a senior vice president and group head with operational oversight over a portfolio of Hearst Television markets. Subsequently he moved into the role of executive vice president in 2017 and deputy group head and chief operating officer in January 2022.

As a Hearst Television station executive, Hayes served as president and general manager at WTAE-TV, the ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh; president and general manager of Hearst's WYFF-TV, the NBC affiliate in the Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina; and general sales manager of WLWT-TV, Hearst's NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, after serving in several sales and management positions across the country, including St. Louis, Grand Rapids, Austin and Peoria. He began his broadcast television career as a sportscaster and producer at WISH-TV - at the time, the CBS affiliate in Indianapolis.

Among various industry and civic activities, Hayes is vice chairman of the NBC Affiliates Board and a past chairman of the ABC Television Affiliates board of governors.

A graduate of Indiana University Bloomington, he holds a bachelor's degree in telecommunications.

Both Durai and Hayes are graduates of the Hearst Management Institute, the executive development program of Hearst.

About Hearst
Hearst is one of the nation's largest global, diversified information, services and media companies. The company's diverse portfolio includes global financial services leader Fitch Group; Hearst Health, a group of medical information and services businesses; Hearst Transportation, which includes CAMP Systems International, a major provider of software-as-a-service solutions for managing maintenance of jets and helicopters; ownership in cable television networks such as A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime and ESPN; 35 television stations; 30 daily and 50 weekly newspapers; digital services businesses; and more than 200 magazine editions around the world.

Contacts:
Paul Luthringer, Hearst, 212-649-2540, [email protected]