• by Fern Siegel , October 31, 2011

Two senior executives have joined Hearst Magazines: Debi Chirichella comes on board as senior vice president, CFO, while Grant Whitmore will assume the role of vice president, digital.

In her new post, Chirichella will oversee all financial planning and reporting for the company's U.S. magazine division. With its acquisition of Lagardère SCA's 100 titles in 14 countries outside of France, Hearst Magazines now publishes more than 300 editions around the world, including 20 U.S. titles, such as Country Living, Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Before joining Hearst, Chirichella spent seven years at Condé Nast; her most recent position was COO of the Fairchild Fashion group. Before that, she was CFO of Condé Nast Publications. 

 On the digital front, Whitmore will oversee Hearst Magazines' U.S. digital operations, which include 28 sites with an average of 22 million unique visitors per month, as well as 14 mobile sites. Hearst Magazines Digital Media earned a 55% increase in total ad revenue the first nine months of 2011, the company stated.

Whitmore was most recently COO  at HFM US Digital Media, where he oversaw digital strategy and execution for magazine brands, including Car and Driver, Elle and Woman’s Day. Prior to that, he was COO at Jumpstart Automotive Group, an t automotive marketing company acquired by Hearst in June 2011 as part of the Lagardère deal.

To expand its digital ops, Hearst recently joined forces with Mobilewalla to spread the word about cool apps through a syndicated column distributed directly to consumers' mobile devices or computers that began Oct. 16.

The columns will highlight popular apps as measured by Mobilewalla's scoring system, which ranks every app in the marketplace on a range from zero to 100, with ratings and descriptions. King Features says early response to is good, with newspapers such as The Houston Chronicle, Portland Oregonian and Tucson Star signing up.