At large media organizations, technology decisions rarely affect just one department. They ripple across editorial workflows, advertising operations, finance systems and the overall ability of a company to scale. For publishers operating dozens of properties, those decisions can determine whether innovation moves quickly or stalls under complexity.
To better understand how one of the industry’s largest newspaper groups approaches this challenge, E&P spoke with Mike Fogel, SVP of Technology at Hearst Newspapers, about managing large-scale projects, modernizing the advertising revenue cycle and integrating AI into sales operations. The conversation also touched on the role specialized partners such as Indigo Trigger, whose expertise in lead-to-cash systems helps large publishers move faster when implementing new workflows and technologies.
In the following Q&A, Fogel discusses the challenges of managing technology across Hearst’s properties, modernizing advertising systems and how AI is beginning to influence revenue operations.
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E&P: At Hearst’s scale, what are the biggest challenges in managing technology projects across so many properties?
Mike Fogel: “The main challenge resource allocation. We are a very successful newspaper company but that comes with cost pressures on software, systems and resources. We need to balance the incoming requests carefully against available resources. We’ve developed an IT and product team evaluation mechanism to require business owners to qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate project requests prior to requesting resources.”
“The secondary challenge is standardization. We’ve been incredibly successful at this on the production, news layout, consumer revenue, and digital side of our house. But it’s been a journey! The initial challenge was defining standards and convincing business leaders of the need to standardize. This worked, but implementation took time. Today we all embrace change and forward momentum carries us ahead faster.”
“We’ve gained enough credibility and success that our philosophy is for the central team to ‘Decide, Inform, Do’ (DID it)! — meaning the centralized teams make the decisions, inform the business leaders and then implement.”
E&P: What lessons have you learned about optimizing the revenue cycle — from lead generation to billing — that other publishers can take away?
Fogel: “Many! But candidly, we aren’t there yet on the advertising revenue side. We are still on a standards journey across our advertising people, process and technology. We are about 65% of the way there from a systems perspective.”
“Our approach has to been to begin with the insertion order system, standardizing on ad sizes and products wherever possible. Recently we’ve started to examine the lead to close process software (i.e. marketing automation) and lead generation with AI. This is our next area of focus.”
For publishers navigating similar modernization efforts, the goal is often to connect systems that historically evolved independently — CRM platforms, order management systems, ad production workflows and billing infrastructure — into a more seamless lead-to-cash pipeline.
That’s where specialized partners frequently come into play.
E&P: Where have specialized partners like Indigo Trigger helped extend your teams, especially when acquisitions or “unplanned” projects hit?
Fogel: “Easy answer: Specialized partners provide additional, skilled resources to assist us out when needed.”
“Indigo Trigger has a very particular set of skills. They supplement my team and on occasion lead certain portions of the implementation of I/O and billing systems. They also are very effective in identifying workflow and process efficiencies we can take advantage of.”
“As a partner, they bring everything from management consulting to programming and are subject matter experts on the advertising systems front.”
For large publishers expanding through acquisitions — a strategy many media companies have pursued in recent years — the ability to quickly integrate new operations into existing technology systems can be critical. Partners who specialize in advertising operations infrastructure often help bridge that gap.
E&P: For smaller publishers without Hearst’s resources, what’s the single smartest step they can take to modernize?
Fogel: “AI and Automation: Identify an AI champion outside of IT, get connected to OpenAI, get trained on prompt engineering and build agents within OpenAI.”
For smaller organizations, the key may not be building complex infrastructure but empowering staff to experiment with tools that can streamline prospecting, sales preparation and client communications.
Mike Fogel and team win 2025 “Basher of the Year” award at Lead to Cash Bash event
(left to right): Chris Prinos (Indigo Trigger), Kat White & Mike Fogel (Hearst Newspapers)
E&P: Hearst has made AI a clear priority. Which initiatives are already influencing revenue operations?
Fogel: “Our main focus on revenue operations has been on the lead to close front. We’ve had some great leadership in this area that produces results. Lead to deal close is off and running with measurable results.”
“Here are some examples of ChatGPT driven tools we have in place.”
“This tool can perform prospecting by industry segment and/or geographic area, and then help a sales rep create an outreach cadence plan based on industry best practices that are baked into the GPT.”
“The sales accelerator is comprised of four apps: Prep & Plan, Trend Analyzer, FOQ and Objections Explorer. This collection of planning tools allows a sales rep to take a deep dive into a prospective client’s business, develop a comprehensive SWOT analysis, generate talking points to get a meeting and cover in advance some common objections a business might present.”
“A simple GPT for an account executive to practice their cold calling skills and improve their responses to objections in real-world scenarios. The app allows users to customize their call preferences or tackle the Kobayashi Maru (no-win) scenario.”
“The Proposal Builder streamlines the creation of digital sales proposals. The GPT then creates all the copy, focusing on built-in best practices for the proposal slide deck which is intended for export to Gamma.”
“This allows the user to upload a display ad or commercial and get a 1–10 rating on that creative, along with ideas about how to improve it. Using this tool, we can input the ads we have seen on competing stations or platforms and generate a conversation with the client about ways to improve their ads.”
“This tool assists in identifying and understanding potential clients’ business requirements and customer dynamics. It helps turn the clients’ responses into usable elements available in Proposal Builder or other GPTs.”
Early results from AI adoption
These results underscore how AI is increasingly being applied not just to editorial workflows but also to sales enablement and advertising operations.
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Why industry collaboration still matters
Many of these ideas continue to surface at industry gatherings where publishers and technologyleaders compare notes on what’s working — and what isn’t.
Events such as Indigo Trigger’s Lead-to-Cash Bash, which brings together executives focused on revenue operations, sales enablement and advertising technology, have become a hub for those conversations.
As Fogel and other media technology leaders continue exploring ways to modernize the industry’s lead-to-cash infrastructure, the goal remains consistent: stronger news organizations supported by more efficient revenue engines.
And for publishers navigating similar transformations, those shared insights can often prove just as valuable as the technologies themselves.
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