Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with McClatchy CEO Tony Hunter

I recently interviewed Tony Hunter on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is the leader of one of the largest publishing companies in the country. Tony Hunter is the CEO of McClatchy, the parent company of newspapers across 30 US markets, catering to 65 million monthly readers. Tony, thank you for joining us.

Tony: Pleasure to be here, Adam.

Adam: You studied accounting at a small college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and you went on to become the CEO of the Chicago Tribune, then the CEO of the parent Tribune company. And now you're the CEO of McClatchy. How did you break into the world of publishing?

Tony: Well, that's interesting that you start with the accounting degree. When I got to Intermediate Accounting, second year in college, man, I looked around and I took the test. I was like, this is not for me. So that's funny that you would hone in on the accounting thing. Fortunately, I had a great professor who grabbed me and said, don't give up, you know? Stick with it. And I did. But it's funny that you start there. But yes, I got into a good college, and I realized I can't take all business classes, you know, liberal arts school. So I loaded up on business. I knew I wanted to be in business. I didn't know what exactly. And I came out. And there weren't many jobs in 1983. I'm dating myself. It's not been surpassed for the glut of job opportunities. But it held that place for a long time. And I didn't realize why I wasn't getting jobs. And I was going to accounting firms, even though I really didn't want to be an accountant. So this is a good lesson, right? I was looking for a job, but I really didn't have a goal. And so I replied to a traveling auditor job that basically I went around and audited newspaper companies. And then the Chicago Tribune, one of my clients called me after 10 years in auditing and said, would you like to come on the other side, the client side? And I said, oh, Chicago Tribune, hometown paper, one of the greatest brands in the world, like, when do I start? And 22 and a half years later, my career with Tribune ended, but I had ink in my veins and the mission of journalism in me, and it changed my life, changed my life, my family's life as well. So, you know, I didn't deliver papers, I didn't have aspirations, my journey, just, you know, it's never a straight line. As you know, Adam, and my journey just found my way into this traveling auditor job and free level. And I learned more about the industry, I was intrigued. And then I joined one of the greatest brands and publishing. So that's, that's kind of the story. And boy, there's a lot of banging around to get there, by the way. But that's it, there's no, like, I didn't start to be in journalism. But that just tells you if you get into the industry or a company, if you really believe in the mission, you ended up staying, and you ended up getting opportunities. And I've been very blessed with opportunities in my career

Adam: Tony, I'm gonna spare listeners, the pain of the two of us spending the next 30 minutes talking about accounting, because I'm not sure which one of us would rather talk about accounting less. But I love the fact that you leveraged your background in accounting, which you weren't particularly passionate about, to go into something that you found interesting and exciting, and that you kept an open mind. And the lesson that you shared with listeners is a lesson that listeners of this podcast hear quite often, which is that there is no linear path to success. And there are ups and there are downs. And it's a matter of keeping an open mind and understanding that no matter how you get there, it's a matter of weathering the lows and being able to overcome whatever obstacles come your way. And on that note, I wanted to ask you, Tony, if you could talk about your journey to the top. You rose from circulation manager, to publisher, ultimately to CEO of the parent company. And if you could share with listeners, what the keys were to climbing the corporate ladder and ultimately, what your best tips are, on how to rise within an organization and how to rise within one's career.

Tony: Well, that's going to be a mouthful for me, but I'm going to be very humble on this one because I never aspired to become the CEO, to be publishing CEO of the Chicago Tribune. I was pinching myself, every day I went to work at The Tribune. Back then we were the greatest media company in the world. We had broadcasting, good publishing, we had digital before digital was in vogue. And that was a great company. And I just couldn't wait to go to work. And I couldn't wait. And I got there at a time when change was afoot. And I am an outspoken, change agitator. On my best days, that's a compliment. On my worst days, it's not a compliment, but I am an agitator change. And I just was in a position where I had the courage to speak my mind, and nervous for opportunity, for change. And those collided in a lot of cases for me, so I was clean up in Aisle five, I was that guy, there's a cleanup in Aisle five. So I went to distribution with zero experience and distribution, to help reinvent distribution. I went from there to consumer marketing and sales, to reinvent consumer marketing and sales. I moved into transportation with no experience, and did labor contracts for the first time. And then from there, I went to run the plant, the manufacturing plant. And I had experience in that my parents were glasswork union workers in the glass factory. I worked there for summers, while I went to college. But the point being no experience in any of the functions, but good general management experience and leadership. And I trusted my bosses and my mentors, who I never knew what they were preparing me for. But they were ultimately preparing me for a big job. And they gave me a lot of opportunities. So first piece, opportunity. Second piece, having the courage and the confidence to leap before you are ready, as Les Brown would say, “And the net will appear.” Because in many of these cases, I was going in literally with zero experience in the function that I was going to leave. And then the third thing that I learned quickly in the corporate world is the meetings outside the meeting, and the power and the politics and the influencers in the organization. And I learned that the meetings were the meetings, but the real meetings occurred in between. And I began to circulate my ideas, try to build coalitions with people that frankly, I was helping. I was going to them saying, here's some things I think that could help. And I also ran across the department lines a lot. I'm not a good person to stay in the box, Adam. In fact, that drives me crazy. And so I think getting outside of your world, understanding the business problems of your colleagues, and bringing solutions and bringing your leadership, those all are all the ways I work. But at the end of the day, if you don't deliver results, you don't get the next opportunity, especially at Tribune. So I don't know if that answers your question. But I just prepared myself. I looked at the opportunities in front of me, and I seized them. And then I had terrific bosses, terrific mentors along the way.

Adam: Tony, you gave so much great insight to listeners. And I want to dive a little bit deeper into two of the themes that you shared and that are clearly instrumental to the success you've enjoyed over the course of your career. Number one has been your eagerness to dive into opportunities, even if they are opportunities in which you have had zero experience coming into them. So what advice do you have for listeners who might be starting a business in an industry that is new to them, or who might be taking a job in a field where they don't have any kind of experience before? That's question number one. And question number two is, you spoke about you being a change agent, everything about you and what you're all about is the word change. Can you talk more about that? How does one become a change agent? What is being a change agent all about?

Tony: Yes, I'll give it a shot. So don't pack the first point. I believe the most important thing you should do when you enter a new space is not only do your homework to understand the space, but to make sure the people that you work with are really good, meaning you have a high quality team around you. And then in all the cases that I have been in my career, I did that assessment quickly. And if it wasn't the right team, I made changes. And that may sound harsh, but without people on your team that compliment you and know the inner workings of a department or a sector, your chances of success go way down. So I always thought, start with the team, make sure you got a great team with you. Second, pick a point you're going to head towards. And again, we can say vision, the hell you're going to take. But give people where you're headed, and tell them every day what our mission is, and drive those things home, over and over and over and gain their support. Because again, if you combine your vision and your strategy and where you want to take the department, the sector, the division that you're running, your people will rally around that. And that's where leadership comes in. And communication comes in. So do your homework. For sure, learn, learn, learn. I like to learn all the time. But also surround yourself with those people that compliment you, that fill in the blanks of what you don't have. That's what I have found to be effective as I went from job to job to job, surrounding myself with people and getting smart fast. And when I say that one last thing, I don't mean understanding the details. In fact, I mean, the opposite. I think you should get no deeper than 30,000 feet. Because if you do, you're then going to be in the weeds with everyone else. And how can you see the big picture if you're in the weeds, so learn enough, but not too much. And then lead your people and unleash the power of your team. Because ultimately, as a leader, you do very little, but you're accountable for everything. And I've just found that to be a good formula, if you will. Again, that doesn't mean I've done it right every time. In fact, this is after two or three failures of trying to learn everything and realizing I just wasted a bunch of time. They didn't hire me to do that. They hired me to take it to the new level. So that's the best I can do to unpack that. Change is a different thing. I don't know what I'm afflicted with other than I'm never satisfied. And my parents took a big risk. They moved from Georgia to move our family to Chicago. Neither had a high school degree, but my parents were risk takers. I didn't realize this till I was older. They moved the whole family; myself, my mom and dad in Georgia to Chicago without a job and not knowing anyone and no education. And I learned right away. That's courage. That's risk taking. My parents taught me early. And so I think it's just part of me. I like to win. But I'm also never satisfied, and I'm always looking for the next opportunity. And so that has suited me well. I enjoy having the intellectual stimulation of trying to solve a problem, maybe a problem no one else could solve. And that's just part of who I am. I've also,\ went back to DePaul, to balance off that accounting degree, Adam, which we don't want to bore people with. But I went back and everybody told me to get a finance MBA. I'm like, why? And they're like, oh, well double down. I'm like, no, I don't want to double down. I want a wide opportunity for my next job. So I took general management and leadership at DePaul University. And I got hooked on leadership. And I mean, to this day, I can't read enough about leadership. And so I started reading things. And as one of my favorites is moments of truth. John Carlson was turning around American Airlines. And as I read that turnaround story, it just got me so charged up. Like I want to do that. And so you combine a little bit of a change. I got a taste of how it would be to turn something around. I had some experience of doing that. And then the last thing about changes. I think you have to be ready to take the arrows like no, you know, let's be honest that no one wants change. I mean, it's painful to most people. So as a change agent, you have to be willing to go out there knowing you're going to be confronted with opposition for your ideas, opposition for change. And so I think you have to be mentally prepared and mentally tough to go into a change assignment, because a lot of people don't talk about that, as you know, they talk about strategy. But I think these intrinsic EQ and qualities that you can learn over time are equally important. Most people are pretty smart. It's the other stuff that eats them up: complexity, scale, opposition, you know, those are the things that normally cause people to fail, not whether they understand what they're doing. I don't know if that helps you or not, or that was my riff. I hope that was helpful.

Adam: A key theme that you and I were chatting about off the air and that has clearly been a very prominent part of what you shared with listeners so far, has been the extent to which you value preparation and preparation being a core element of your philosophy as a leader, and clearly the fact that you went into turning around the Tribune company and now trying to turn around McClatchy. Having studied previous turnarounds has been helpful to you. And I want to know if you could share with listeners, some of the lessons that you learned from your experience turning around the Tribune company, and just more broadly, what advice you have on how to lead in times of crisis, uncertainty and change in how to lead a turnaround?

Tony: Well, yeah, I do think there's, well, first of all, planning to me, and preparing are so critical. It's 90% of success, I believe. 10% is execution. If you plan well, you prepare well, execution should be easy. And I call it breakers when opportunities, preparedness, and circumstances collide. You know, you can't catch up to a crisis. You can't catch up to a pandemic, you're either ready or you're not. And we found that through this pandemic; some companies were ready, some leaders were ready, and they were able to power through, others weren't. So I think this notion of being prepared, and preparing yourself in advance of the opportunity is something that I've learned over time to have a handsome payoff if you will. Turn around. I think the first thing I'm a great literary fan. Great by choice, fans love Jim Collins. Gerstner. I've read his stuff. Drucker, I just, I think there's so many of these older leadership and business gurus that today, Jack Welch, they still have those principles. I've taken from all of them, and taken the right pieces for a turnaround. And at Tribune, we decided to confront the brutal facts and go from good to great. And we really just got honest with ourselves. If we stay in the newspaper business, we're going to be out of business. If we turn into a media and a business services company, and start leaning into digital, we’ve got a chance back, way better than a champ. So I think the first thing is to make a proclamation of what you're going to turn around to. You never run away from something until you have something to run to, in my opinion. And we made that proclamation, then you have to go back and you’ve got to start lining up the right people in the leadership team. And I mean, the senior team, and I like people with different perspectives. I love people that have cross functional experience, because then they won't be so silo-minded. Then you go about communicating the plan, developing the plan and communicating a simple plan and McClatchy, we got one page, at Tribune, we had a one pager. People scoffed at that. But in my mind, leadership's about simplifying the plan so everyone sees themself in the plan. Then we communicated the plan to everyone. Then we put alignment and accountability into the system. And we measured like crazy how we were doing and last week cut deeper than we had to and reinvested money in the emerging opportunities that I think is a failure that occurs more often than not, people normally cut just enough. And it all goes in the Treasury. We were smart enough to cut deeper than we needed to, and take that money and reinvest it in future opportunities. So those are steps that I have used, regardless of the company size of the company, that I have found work over time, and in fact, dusted off when I got to McClatchy. And we're using much of that same playbook. And then the last thing I want to talk about is how your organization operates. Being agile, nimble, being able to pivot to me in today's world- if you don't build a company that has that characteristic, then you're going to get disrupted. It's just a matter of time. So I think building organizational agility, and an organization capable of dealing with disruption is another ingredient in preparing your company for a turnaround.

Adam: I love everything you're saying and love everything that you're sharing with listeners, I wanted to ask you, and you touched on this a little bit in your answer- the media landscape has changed dramatically since you've been in it. You started off as an accountant, and now you're leading one of the biggest brands in media. What are the keys to leading a media company today and what should leaders in any industry understand about the present and future of publishing?

Tony: That's a kinder way than some people ask me, what are you doing back in public? You're much kinder. Trust me, if I've been asked that question once I've been asked it 100 times. So why don't we do the elephant in the room? Why do they come back? I mean, so first of all, I believe deeply in the mission. I think it's never been more important. Just look at the circumstances in the last few years. You know, it's never been more important. So I love that love and believe in the mission. I wouldn't have come back without joining another iconic company. And McClatchy is iconic, an iconic publishing company. And the third thing that brought me back was, I actually see a sustainable business model in publishing. I see it. I don't think it's as elusive as we have been told, so to speak. It's all it was. And I love a challenge, as I've already covered. And the people at McClatchy were terrific. I knew them from my days at Tribune. So that got me back into the game. So what's important, in my mind, what's important is to realize what you do better than anyone else. What are those core competencies and differentiators that we have in publishing, and sometimes I think we run from them. So at the core of that is, no one creates better journalism, on an ongoing basis in the towns that we operate in than we do. No one, not even close. And so essential, local content is at the core of our future success. And we are doubling down on that. But second thing, our audiences are highly valuable to advertisers. And they're highly engaged, more so than many consumers of other products. And so we have an advantage of that. We also have multiple distribution channels, and all of our markets and reach. And so what we're really is an iconic brand and our local market, I can go on- but those four things, many companies would pay hundreds of millions to build those capabilities, we have them. And so we're focusing on what we do better than anyone else. And what are differentiators for publishing companies. And then we're going to figure out our way to get more digital subscribers like everybody else in the industry, and importantly, how to move our print readers to a digital product. And make sure we don't lose them in that continuum from print to digital and go somewhere else, and move them to our products, where we can serve them better content, more up to date content. So we believe there is a future business model in advertisements overseas. You know, we could talk about that till the cows come home. But the fact of the matter is we have valuable audiences, we have to figure out better ways to monetize them, especially digitally. But if we could do that, and convert to a digital subscriber model, I believe there's a sustainable business model for publishing. I also believe the bifurcation in media has been so obvious, left and right. And the misinformation and all you read about the social platforms, I think has created an opportunity for us to seize the moment. Doing objective local reporting, reporting facts. And finding one source of the truth in these local communities is something that we've been doing for over 150 years at McClatchy. And we should double down on that, not run from it, but double down on that. So I'm, as you could tell, passionate about that, I think we have an opportunity to seize, and we can tend to do our best to seize it at McClatchy.

Adam: Passion is at your very core, Tony. And passion is at the core of what makes a great leader. Great. And I wanted to know if you could share with listeners in your perspective, what are the most important characteristics of a great leader and how can anyone listening to this conversation right now become a better leader?

Tony: Oh, there are lists all over the place. But I'm going to try to hone in on three areas. So I think the most important thing as a leader, you have to be current, and relevant. And everybody, you know, you say that everybody yawns, but think about that current and relevant. And I think the musicians I like, David Bowie and Prince, as two musicians that I like to hold up on a pedestal for decades, they were current and relevant. In a sector that is ever changing, consumer habits change almost by the day in music, and those people, David Bowie, and Prince, stayed at the top for decades. I use that because if you want to be a great leader, you have to be current and relevant, adapting, evolving, reinventing yourself along the way, surrounding yourself with people that are different from you. So you learn from them. You know, inclusion, DEI is hot right now. But if, you know, it didn't have to be elevated to me, I got that at the Hunter kitchen table, from my mom and dad, how important it is to treat people respectfully, include them, listen to them. So staying current and relevant. Second, have big ears and thick skin. Let me say it again, just like an elephant, big ears, thick skin. Imagine that right now that you have big ears, why? So you hear things you don't agree with. You hear things that may disappoint you and disappoint you. But you also hear things to make you better, and also make your business better. So you have to have big ears and that thick skin because there’s going to be things you're told that you're going to want to reject. Don't reject, find the nuggets of truth, and implement those. So that's the second thing that I think about when I think about leaders; big ears, thick skin. And the last thing I will say is, again, you must be a leader of people, you must be able to get the best of your people. And there are many ways to Rome, you don't have to be charismatic, necessarily. But you have to be a great communicator because communication is 90% of my job right now. Communicating where we're going, communicating expectations, communicating to inspire. And I think communication and the ability to tell the story of where you're headed is critical whether you're a manager, director, VP, CEO, Chairman, at the end of the day, your ability to tell the story and lead your troops to the victory is a major component to being a great leader.

Adam: Tony, I'm gonna need to do some extra foam rolling tomorrow because my neck is so sore from all the nodding that I've been doing everything you said, I could not agree with more the importance of being relevant, continually thinking about an example of someone who we may not necessarily think of as a leader, but as someone who has been a leading voice in America for literally generations, and he's someone who has managed to stay relevant. And that's Dan Rather. And Dan Rather, is one of the leading influencers on Twitter, of all platforms. And it's just an example of someone who has managed to reinvent himself over and over and over again. Something that I tell audiences over and over and over again myself is that great leaders are great listeners. So I love that visual that you gave to our listeners about thinking about an elephant, thick skin, big ears. I love that.

Tony: Well, I had done something- I think the thing that I would say about leadership is if folks can go into it open minded and humble enough, and really listen to your point, the answers are all there. Thay are people who come to work and want to win. If you tell them where we're headed to give them the right goals, you tell him the strategy. The answers are right in front of you. And it actually can happen faster than you ever imagined. But you have to be the architect. You've got to tell people where we're going, what's the expectation, what are the goals, but if you listen to your point, the answers are right in front of you. All you gotta do is act on them. And make sure your leadership team is listening. And that's usually where the breakdown occurs, somewhere in the management ranks. There's the buzz killer, that doesn't listen to the idea and shuts people down. And they only need one of those, and it gets around the company. So I think your listening point is spot on. And again, the thick skin I add just because you know we also like to stiff arm ideas that don't jive with ours. But you don't grow and you don't stay relevant if you don't listen to other people and change over time. And get better as a leader because none of us are perfect, including me. Every day I learned something new, every single day from someone that back in the day. I would have never listened to it because it didn't fit with my narrative. So this wasn't something I started with. It comes with age and wisdom and experience. But if I was starting over again, thick skin would be the top of my list. And right below that would be communication, communication, communication.

Adam: Tony, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for being a part of 30 Minute Mentors and thank you for all the great insights and advice.

Tony: My pleasure, Adam, thanks for having me.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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