Cornerstone Donors: Gannett Foundation

Carol Hudler
President & Publisher
The Tennessean
South Group President

Carol Hudler was named President and Publisher of The Tennessean in December 2009, after serving nearly ten years as the publisher of The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida. She is also Group President of Gannett's South Newspaper Group and oversees 13 Gannett-owned media operations in six Southeastern states, including the Tennessean Media Group.

Hudler has worked in a variety of advertising, marketing and general management positions in several different states, including the Kansas City Star; the Orange County Register; the Long Beach Press-Telegram; The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, and the Macon Telegraph. She served on the board of the Newspaper Association of America and chaired its Audit Bureau of Circulation liaison committee.

A native Kansan, she graduated in 1977 with a degree in Journalism Science from the University of Kansas and was a 1999 graduate of the Stanford Executive Program.

Hudler believes in the power of community and has served in leadership roles for several organizations in the communities that she has called home. Currently she serves as a board member of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce and as a trustee for the United Way of Middle Tennessee. Carol also is a member of the Board of Professional Advisors of Middle Tennessee University's College of Mass Communications and board member of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. In Southwest Florida, Carol chaired the Horizon Foundation, the non-profit arm of Lee County, Florida's economic development office and was named a 2009 Laureate in the Junior Achievement Business Leadership Hall of Fame.

Her husband, Ad Hudler, is a novelist and their daughter Haley is a sophomore at Denison University in Granville Ohio.