Leadership Team

Mike Steib is CEO of TEGNA Inc., a leading local broadcast and digital media company that owns and operates 64 broadcast stations in 51 U.S. markets.

Previously, Steib was CEO of Artsy, the leading online marketplace for buying and selling art from galleries, auction houses, and collectors in over 100 countries around the world. During his tenure, the team developed the most popular app in the art world, significantly accelerated revenue growth, and achieved operating profitability.

Prior to Artsy, Steib was the CEO of XO Group Inc. (NYSE: XOXO), parent company of The Knot, where he and the team developed America’s most-used and highest-rated wedding planning app and two-sided local vendor marketplace, culminating in a 300% total shareholder return over his five-year tenure as CEO.

Earlier in his career, Steib served in roles at Google, NBCUniversal, Vente-Privee USA, Walker Digital, and McKinsey & Company.

From 2014 until 2024, Steib served on the board of directors of Ally Financial (NYSE: Ally), a Fortune 500 digital financial services company that helps millions of Americans save, invest, and borrow for their most important purchases, where he chaired Ally’s Digital Transformation and Technology Committees, and served on the Risk Committee.

Doing his best to serve the community, Steib has served as chairman of the board of Change.org, a global platform for social change, chairman of the board of Literacy Partners, a free adult literacy and family support service for underprivileged New Yorkers, and chairman of the board of Career Gear, helping disadvantaged and previously incarcerated men return to the workforce.

Steib also seeks to contribute insights and advice on business leadership and career development. He was the host of Office Hours with Mike Steib (2023-2024), a production of iHeartMedia, the #1 podcast publisher in the world, during which he interviewed the founders and chief executives shaping our world. He is also the author of The Career Manifesto (Penguin Random House, 2018), a guide for young professionals seeking more purpose and joy in their careers. Steib’s work has been featured on NBC’s “Today” show, “Good Morning America,” CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business, as well as in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, Fast Company, and others.

Steib received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a named inventor of three patents and played a supporting actor role in the independent film “The Mad Ones”. He is married to Kemp Steib, the CFO of The Second Shift, a marketplace for highly skilled professional women, has two teenage children, and one rowdy border terrier.

As executive vice president and chief operating officer of Media Operations for TEGNA Inc., Lynn Beall leads operations across the company’s 64 broadcast stations that reach approximately thirty-nine percent of all television households nationwide. This includes setting the vision and strategy for content and sales innovation initiatives that are transforming local journalism and marketing solutions in the digital age. Due to these efforts, TEGNA has won more national Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University, Edward R. Murrow and Peabody awards than any other local broadcaster in the past five years.

Beall is currently vice chair of the National Association of Broadcasters Television Board and also serves on the T. Howard Foundation and National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation (NABLF) Boards. She serves on the executive committee of the CBS Television Affiliates Association Board and served as its chair from November 2021 through August 2024.

Previously, Beall was executive vice president and senior vice president of Gannett Broadcasting, positions she held while President and General Manager of KSDK-TV, the NBC affiliate in St. Louis, MO. Earlier, Beall was general executive of Gannett Television where she worked with stations on special projects and retransmission agreements. Prior to her corporate roles, Beall held marketing, programming and sales positions at five TEGNA stations, including WUSA in Washington, DC; KPNX in Phoenix, AZ; KTHV in Little Rock, AR; WKYC in Cleveland, OH and KSDK in St. Louis, MO. She has twice been named Manager of the Year during her tenure.

She has previously served as a board member or advisor for organizations including the Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the St. Louis affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Urban League and the St. Louis Sports Commission Board.

W. Edmond (Ed) Busby is senior vice president and chief strategy officer for TEGNA. He joined the company in December 2015 and is responsible for driving existing strategic initiatives and identifying new growth opportunities for TEGNA.

Prior to TEGNA, Busby served as both an independent advisor and as a Partner in The Boston Consulting Group’s Media Practice where he served a broad array of media companies and private equity firms investing in the media sector. He also served as the chief commerce officer for Softcard, the carrier-led mobile wallet that was sold to Google in 2015.

Busby is an active angel investor and has funded start-ups in the Hispanic media, fin tech, and local ad services sectors. He has also served as an adjunct professor of mobile marketing at Columbia Business School.

Busby is a graduate of The George Washington University and holds an MBA in Finance and Media from Columbia Business School.

Tom Cox is senior vice president, digital and chief growth officer for TEGNA responsible for leading efforts to accelerate TEGNA’s existing digital businesses, as well as identify new growth opportunities. Cox leads efforts across TEGNA’s digital product and technology divisions and Premion, TEGNA’s CTV/OTT advertising platform.

An insightful strategist, pioneering dealmaker, and adroit operator, Cox has more than twenty years of experience leading operations, strategy, and business development teams focused on companies at the intersection of media and technology.

Previously, Cox was president of Premion responsible for overall strategic direction, operations, and financial performance for Premion and senior vice president, corporate development for TEGNA.

Before joining TEGNA in 2011, Cox served as senior vice president for FOX Digital where he was responsible for directing all partnership activities, launching new revenue-producing products and distribution initiatives, as well as leading numerous operations-related functions.

Cox co-founded Stratique Partners, an executive-level consulting firm specializing in developing creative strategies, identifying and negotiating transformative partnerships, and launching new products and business lines for a wide array of clients from first time entrepreneurs to blue-chip companies.

Earlier in his career, Cox spent almost eight years in a variety of executive roles at AOL in the business affairs, strategy, and corporate development departments. He began his career in the investment banking and interactive divisions at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey.

Cox is a graduate of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. and holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science. He resides in Potomac, Maryland with his wife and two sons.

Julie Heskett is senior vice president and chief financial officer for TEGNA. In this role, Heskett is responsible for overall financial management of the company, including accounting, internal audit, short- and long-term financial strategy, planning and analysis, corporate treasury, investor relations and tax. Previously, Heskett was SVP for financial planning and business operations and head of investor relations.

Since the company became a pure play broadcaster in 2017, Heskett has been instrumental in transforming TEGNA’s finance organization, leading to greater efficiency through shared service centers for accounting, accounts payable and payroll, as well as creating regional finance directors and analysts across operating units. She spearheads the company’s strategic sourcing and analysis function and has worked with TEGNA’s controller and treasurer on debt refinancing and raising of capital by providing financial projections, analysis and business insights.

She has played a pivotal role in numerous acquisition initiatives, including evaluating opportunities, developing business models and providing insights. She has led the company’s acquisition integration efforts for the Belo Corp. stations in 2013 and stations acquired from Nexstar Media Group and Dispatch Broadcast Group in 2019.

From 2013 to 2017, Heskett was senior vice president of finance and technology for TEGNA and, previously, Gannett Co., Inc. In this role, Heskett was an integral partner to the president of Gannett’s broadcast division and provided financial reporting, analysis and operational accountability. She began her tenure with the company at KSDK, TEGNA’s NBC affiliate in St. Louis. She joined the station in April of 1998 as accounting manager and was promoted to business manager in 2000, and vice president of finance at Gannett in 2007. Previously, Heskett served as controller at a commercial construction company for three years.

Heskett was awarded the company’s Corporate Staffer of the year in 2014. She completed the company’s twelve-month Broadcasting Management Program in January 2004. She also received a certificate from the National Association of Broadcasters Management Development Seminar for Television Executives in July 2004.

Heskett graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and business management from Maryville University. She earned an MBA from Fontbonne University.

Jeff Newman was named senior vice president and chief human resources officer for TEGNA Inc. in April 2017. He joined the company in 2013 as vice president of total rewards and HR services.

Prior to joining TEGNA, Newman worked in the financial services sector for over 15 years. He was the head of compensation and benefits for the North American Operations of HSBC. At HSBC, he was also responsible for leading human resources functions for mergers and acquisitions. Newman has held similar leadership positions at GE and Capital One.

Newman is a graduate of Towson State University with a degree in Business and a minor in Mathematics. He is an active member of several HR professional associations, including presenting at national conferences and serving on advisory boards.

Jeff and his wife, Laurie, have two children.

Kurt Rao currently serves as the senior vice president and chief technology officer at TEGNA.

Rao leads all facets of TEGNA’s technology strategy, including the development and implementation of the company’s next-generation client and customer technology solutions in the areas of content, advertising, data and insights and media distribution, in addition to broadcast operations and information technology.

Previously, Rao was chief information and technology officer for Time Inc., where he led the transformation and growth of the media publishing organization into a digital content platform company. In addition, he optimized technology operations across the organization and built platforms to support content across video and digital while enhancing consumer data analytics.

Prior to joining Time Inc., Rao was an executive at Time Warner Inc., where he most recently served as corporate chief information officer. During his tenure, he helped build and implement a shared, internal services technology organization. Rao has also worked as vice president of technology for NBC Universal and director of application development at Viacom Inc.

Rao received his B.S. in Computer Science from Monmouth University. He currently sits on the advisory boards of several software companies.

As senior vice president and chief experience officer, Dhanusha Sivajee leads the end-to-end journey of local community members across TEGNA’s award-winning portfolio of linear, connected TV and digital experiences that reach approximately 100 million people every month. She oversees research, communications, brand, performance and lifecycle marketing, plus the development of consumer digital products.

A veteran executive with deep experience in media and tech, Sivajee joined TEGNA from Angi, Inc. where she was chief marketing officer (CMO) responsible for the company’s major rebrand into a one-stop shop for homeowners to find, schedule and book local service professionals for all their home projects. Previously she was CMO for XO Group, now The Knot Worldwide, where she played an integral role in transforming the leading editorial brand into a high-growth two-sided global marketplace. Prior to The Knot Worldwide, she was CMO for the AOL Brand Group responsible for driving audience growth for AOL’s portfolio of digital brands. Earlier in her career, Sivajee led cross-platform marketing for Bloomberg Media’s suite of digital products and was director of affiliate and product marketing at HBO responsible for the go-to market strategy for HBO On Demand and HBO GO.

She is a member of the Board of Directors of HNI Corporation. She is a founding board member of Digital Diversity Network, a non-profit trade organization dedicated to fostering diverse leadership and ownership in the digital media and technology sectors.

Sivajee holds a B.S. in International Management from the University of Manchester and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Alex Tolston is senior vice president and chief legal officer at TEGNA. In this role, Tolston leads the company’s legal department and oversees all legal functions across a broad range of disciplines including corporate governance, content creation and distribution, regulatory, ethics and compliance, M&A, capital markets, and litigation and support TEGNA’s long-term direction and growth.

Previously, Tolston was executive vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary at Hemisphere Media Group, a U.S.-based publicly traded media company targeting the high growth Spanish-language streaming, broadcast television and cable networks business in the U.S. and Latin America.

At Hemisphere, Tolston executed the company’s growth strategy, including M&A, joint venture and sale transactions. This included the acquisition of three U.S. cable networks, two Latin American cable networks, a joint venture to create the #3 national broadcast network in Colombia, and a joint venture to create the leading Hispanic premium subscription service in the U.S, and subsequent buyout of its joint venture partner. He was instrumental in steering Hemisphere’s intellectual property strategy, including license agreements with leading U.S. and international entertainment companies and sports media rights agreements with the NBA, MLB, and professional soccer and basketball leagues in Latin America. Tolston was an integral part of a complex, three-part public sale process completed in 2022.

Before joining Hemisphere, Tolston practiced law in the corporate department at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and was counsel to Hemisphere in its initial public offering. He began his career at Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc.

Mr. Tolston holds a B.A., magna cum laude, from Tulane University and a J.D., magna cum laude, from New York Law School. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Law School Alumni Association and sits on the Newcomb-Tulane College Dean’s Advisory Council at Tulane University. …