Philadelphia Inquirer Names Lisa Hughes New Publisher

The Philadelphia Inquirer announced Tuesday its chief executive officer, publisher Terrance C.Z. “Terry” Egger, will retire and be replaced next month by Lisa Hughes, a member of the company’s board of directors who will become the first female publisher of The Inquirer in its 190-year history.

Hughes, who worked in magazine publishing for decades and served as the vice president/publisher of the New Yorker until 2017, will take over Feb. 3. She said she plans to build on Egger’s strategies to diversify revenue sources, both through commercial means and philanthropy, to preserve local journalism in a time of economic turmoil.

Lisa Hughes

“Nothing matters more in our democracy than local journalism,” Hughes, 59, said, “to speak truth to power, to hold elected officials accountable, to celebrate our sports teams’ wins and losses, and to report on justice reform and the education system and gun violence, all of which has been part of The Inquirer’s beat for 190 years.”

Hughes hasn’t worked in local news or at a daily newspaper, other than sitting on The Inquirer’s board of directors since 2018 and serving last year in a brief paid role consulting the organization on its events strategy.

Those involved in selecting Hughes said she was picked because of her work for nearly nine years leading business operations at the New Yorker, where she and editor David Remnick steered the weekly magazine’s transformation from an iconic legacy print brand into a digital player.

Hughes said while she didn’t know she’d be the first woman to publish The Inquirer during the interview process, she’s “proud of the breakthrough” and vowed to elevate the voices of traditionally underrepresented groups at The Inquirer, including women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community.

Egger, 62, plans to retire and spend more time with family out of state. The former publisher of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, he became the head of what was then Philadelphia Media Network — the parent company of The Inquirer, the Daily News, and Philly.com — in 2015 after about a decade of ownership changes and shakeups at the top.

Today, The Inquirer is a “public benefit corporation,” meaning while it operates as a for-profit, public interest is a core part of its mission.