• by Sara Guaglione , June 25, 2018

Hearst Magazines president David Carey is stepping down at the end of this year, after eight years in the position.

Carey will become chairman of the company through 2019. He will also become a fellow at the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative next year. The program is designed for business leaders interested in social-impact initiatives.

“Under David, we have become a preeminent global digital publishing company while continuing to launch innovative print editions,” Hearst CEO and president Steven Swartz said in a memo to employees Monday morning.

In a note to Hearst staff, Carey wrote: “I’m proud of our collective performance during a period of broad media sector change.”

The Hearst Magazines Group experienced four straight years of earnings growth up until 2016. But in 2017, earnings were off by "low single digits,” Carey wrote in a letter to Hearst Magazines' staff at the end of last year.

But Carey said 2017 “was still one of our best years in the past decade,” due to the company’s diversification of its operating units “across audiences, geographies, print and digital, business-to-business and business-to-consumer.”

Hearst’s B2B and international media units represented nearly 45% of the division’s earnings in 2017, “a big jump over prior years,” Carey noted. 

Under Carey, Hearst acquired Hachette magazines in 2011, which included Elle, Woman’s Day and Car and Driver. He also oversaw the acquisition last year of Rodale, bringing Women’s Health, Men’s Health and Runner’s World into Hearst’s portfolio of brands.

He played a key role in the launch of HGTV Magazine in 2012 and The Pioneer Woman Magazine last year.

Carey previously worked at Esquire and SmartMoney and joined Condé Nast in 1995 to oversee the relaunch of House & Garden. He later become group president of Wired, Golf Digest and Golf World, and returned to Hearst in 2010.

Carey will help the company search for his replacement.