Former investment banker and Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner was named publisher and chief executive of the Los Angeles Times.
Beutner, 54, succeeds Eddy Hartenstein, who was recently named the non-executive chairman of the company. Beutner will report to Jack Griffin, chief executive of Tribune Publishing Co.
“As an avid reader of the Los Angeles Times, I recognize the role it plays as a civic conscience for our city, region and state,” Beutner said.
Beutner, whose appointment becomes effectively immediately, stressed the importance of The Times as a newspaper of record plays in the health of the city.
“Los Angeles and California are where America and the world come to see its future, and with a renewed energy and focus, The Times can inform all of us. I’m honored to become part of The Times’ storied 132-year tradition of excellence.”
Beutner becomes the 14th publisher in the more than 132-year history of the Los Angeles Times. He’s a New York native who grew up in Michigan and moved to Los Angeles in 2000.
Beutner was co-founder, president and co-CEO of Evercore Partners, which he helped build into one of the leading independent investment banks in the world. Before that, he worked for Blackstone Group, becoming the private equity capital firm’s youngest partner at age 29.
He left Blackstone for a government job, leading a U.S. effort to help Russia transition to a market economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 2010, Beutner became Los Angeles’ first deputy mayor and jobs czar under Antonio Villaraigosa.
He serves as Board Chairman of CalArts, The Broad Stage and the Mammoth Mountain Community Foundation; on the boards of The California Nature Conservancy, the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education, the Pacific Council on International Relations, and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team Foundation; and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 2012, he created Vision To Learn, a nonprofit that provides free eyeglasses to children in low-income communities in California.
Just last week, the Tribune Co. spun off the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and eight other dailies into a stand-alone company.
