Tegna Board Elects Chairman, Adds Director

Tegna Inc. today announced that Howard D. Elias has been elected as non-executive chairman of the board. Elias will replace Marjorie Magner who is retiring after serving as a director of the company since 2006 and as chairman since 2011. Elias will assume the chairman role immediately following the company’s 2018 annual meeting of shareholders on April 26.

The company also announced today that Stuart J. Epstein, most recently co-managing partner at Evolution Media and former executive vice president and chief financial officer of NBCUniversal, has been elected to Tegna’s board of directors, effective immediately.

Elias is president of Dell Services, digital and IT. He oversees technology and deployment services, consulting services, global support services, education services, global Centers of Excellence, the IT organization, Dell Commerce Services, and Virtustream.

Previously, Elias was president and chief operating officer, EMC Global Enterprise Services, responsible for setting the strategy, driving execution and creating best practices for services that enabled customers’ digital transformation and data center modernization. Elias has served on Tegna’s board since 2008 and currently is chair of the executive compensation committee.

Epstein most recently was co-managing partner at Evolution Media, the merchant bank of Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Previously, Epstein was executive vice president and chief financial officer of NBCUniversal, where he oversaw the company’s financial planning and operations, strategic business initiatives, and real estate efforts. He also spent 23 years at Morgan Stanley, where he was managing director and global head of the Media & Communications Group and a member of the management committee of the Investment Banking Division.

Epstein received his BS from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and his MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

With Epstein’s election, Tegna has 12 directors.

In addition, today Tegna declared a dividend of 7 cents per share, payable on April 2 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on March 9.

“We continue to deliver a strong return for shareholders by remaining focused on transforming our content, sales and marketing offerings,” said Dave Lougee, Tegna president-CEO. “We continue to be well-positioned with a strong balance sheet, multiple revenue opportunities and the flexibility to invest opportunistically in order to create value for shareholders while serving the greater good of our communities.”