Since Dev Pragad took the helm of Newsweek as President and CEO in 2018, the hallowed media organization’s website has gone from seven million unique monthly users to as many as 100 million users across all channels.  The company is now debt-free and profitable, with projected revenue growth of 20% to 30% this year.

Further, Newsweek’s print edition today is available in 68 countries and territories, and round-the-clock coverage of the latest breaking world news can be found on a robust digital platform at newsweek.com.

What it adds up to is that, under Dev’s stewardship, the Newsweek story is nothing less than a textbook example of an extraordinary business turn-around.  So says a case study published by Harvard University, late last year.   

“By September 2021, Pragad and the leadership team had completed a successful turnaround of the business and, with about 100 million readers across all platforms, Newsweek had the largest audience in its history,” notes the Harvard case study.

Talk about the right person at the right time.  Dev Pragad was a perfect fit for the new, Internet-driven media landscape in which the brand found itself.  A UK native and graduate of King’s College London with a Bachelor of Engineering in computer science/electronics and a Ph.D. in the mobile Internet, Dev relocated to New York to take the helm of the enterprise in September 2018.  He is now an American citizen, holding dual citizenship with the UK.  Dev is a member of the Advisory Board of The Prince’s Trust, a charity founded in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) to support and assist vulnerable youth, as well as a Fellow of King’s College London. 

“Newsweek’s rise over the years is a fascinating story,” says Dev today. “I thought we could build on that.  But to do it, we had to restart the brand.  And that was a tremendous, and tremendously exciting, challenge.

“But that vision wasn’t enough, in and of itself.  It was critical that we leverage our people and launch a digital transformation, and do these things in a way that was totally transparent.  I found this very energizing,” Dev says. 

What Dev did was develop a three-part approach, focusing on purpose, opportunity and change.  “Purpose is critical,” Pragad notes.  “Because, without a purpose, without a mission, you don’t have a mechanism to galvanize the organization.” 

“But first came an acceptance of reality,” Dev remarks. And that led to an initiative to educate writers on the fact that there’s no such thing as a great story… if nobody reads it.  Journalists needed to buy into the reality that data must drive their editorial decisions.  For example, they had to understand which stories found an audience on the major digital platforms like Google, Facebook and Apple News, and which did not.

“What we did next was try to capture that reality in something we called ‘the Newsweek way.’”  Says Pragad, “This is very useful.  Because it captures our key values – integrity, innovation, ambition and equality.  And we can then overlay those values on how we operate – how we hold ourselves accountable, to ourselves, our readers, our partners and our clients.

“Opportunity,” Dev notes. “You can find it all around you.  The challenge is to pick wisely, and then optimize what you pick.  What we decided to do was seek out partnerships.  And we were delighted that many Tier-1 companies were very willing to work with us…” partners like Google, Engine Media and Statista.

For example, with Statista, Newsweek was able to garner instant recognition and credibility, when it launched a series of rankings, starting with the best hospitals in the U.S.  “And, in doing so, we were also able to reinforce our purpose to society,” Dev says. 

A second pivotal partnership was with Google Cloud, which helped develop an industry-leading AI recommendation engine.  Applying that technology led to a revolution in how stories could be personalized for readers… and that led directly to Newsweek increasing its click-through rates by 50-75% between early 2020 and August 2021.

The breakthrough work with Google came from implementation of an objective and key results (OKR) framework, which Dev also introduced. 

An OKR framework is a way to get teams to set ambitious, measurable goals, and outline what results these goals would achieve.  In so doing, OKRs also push an organization to collaborate, across the entire enterprise.

Dev decided to pilot OKRs around Newsweek’s Q4 2020 ad revenue.  He initially set a goal of 35% of total ad revenue for Q4, compared to Q4 of 2019.  But he raised the target to 50%... and Newsweek managed to exceed the stretch goal… and that convinced Pragad to set even more ambitious goals for 2021.

Then there’s change.  “Change is inevitable,” Dev notes.  “What we had to do at Newsweek was ensure that we embrace change, not fight it.  We had to acknowledge the disruption in our business, and work toward a new dynamic, a digital-first company.” 

Embracing change starts with each and every one of us, Dev says today.  “Everyone must commit to self-improvement.  When you do that, it becomes a core value.  And the results become self-evident.”

When it comes to inspiring leaders to model behavior after, Dev points to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.  “His value system, and his ability to transfer those values to his entire organization – I think it’s a remarkable story about how a large and complex organization can be transformed and energized.”

Harvard University looks to the next chapter of Dev’s Newsweek story this way.  “The focus for 2022 (is) continuing the growth rate experienced in 2021 and, more importantly, focusing on expanding the impact of Newsweek stories.  How do we measure and monitor our output for continuous improvement?  How do we strategically assign investment to increase our influence?  How do we build and scale the teams that will deliver impact journalism and strengthen brand loyalty?”

Says Harvard, those initiatives grow out of Dev’s overarching vision, that Newsweek should play a positive and vital role in America’s public culture, society and discourse.

It sounds a lot like a traditional media story, updated to very different times.  A dynamic leader like Dev Pragad will do that for you.