The Role
Leads corporate development activities, including deal sourcing, evaluation, diligence, financial modeling, investment recommendations, transaction execution, and portfolio strategy. Partners with operating businesses and senior leaders to assess markets, competitors, strategic fit, and inorganic growth opportunities. Builds sector expertise, manages internal and external stakeholders, strengthens sourcing and diligence processes, and may develop AI-enabled automation and eventually manage a junior team member.
Summary Generated by Built In
Hearst Health is seeking a Director, Corporate Development to serve as a senior deal lead and strategic partner to the Head of Strategy & Corporate Development. As the second and most senior professional joining the function, you will have significant ownership across corporate development—from identifying and evaluating opportunities to quarterbacking active transactions and helping shape portfolio-level strategy.
This is a long-term investment mandate. Hearst Health owns its businesses permanently and evaluates opportunities through the lens of 10+ years of compounding value rather than a traditional five-year investment horizon. Success means identifying a focused set of high-impact opportunities, staying connected to the right deal flow, prioritizing rigorously, and developing a clear point of view on which opportunities merit investment for both strategic and financial reasons.
The role operates in two complementary modes: leading active deal evaluations and building deep sector knowledge between transactions. Over time, the Director will also have the opportunity to build the case for and lead a junior corporate development hire as the function grows.
About the Team
The mission of Hearst Health is to guide healthcare organizations by delivering essential intelligence and software that improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care. Hearst Health has been innovating with care for more than 40 years, with a commitment to making a lasting positive impact on health. The Hearst Health companies — FDB, Homecare Homebase, MCG, MHK, QGenda and Zynx Health — elevate care by informing and empowering participants across the health journey. To learn more, follow @Hearst-Health on LinkedIn.
- Lead active deal evaluations by owning workplans, data room coordination, diligence tracking, timelines, and cross-functional and advisor management from evaluation through closing.
- Develop investment recommendations as the first pen on investment theses, financial models, investment committee memos, and board and management presentations.
- Form and defend an independent point of view on opportunities using qualitative and strategic considerations—including structural market position, durable competitive advantage, demand durability, and fit with Hearst Health—alongside financial analysis. Generate evidence logs, document findings and pass rationales, and create summary memos of key takeaways to build and maintain a searchable proprietary insight library.
- Partner with management teams of Hearst Health operating businesses to understand their businesses, product roadmaps, strategic priorities, and the markets in which they operate—translating these insights into market analyses that inform strategic direction.
- Perform comprehensive market research and competitor analysis to deliver insights that shape strategy, deal sourcing, and opportunity assessment.
- Connect opportunities to portfolio strategy by identifying adjacencies, capability gaps, and inorganic growth themes across Hearst Health's six businesses.
- Build sector expertise between deal cycles through expert networks, banker relationships, industry conferences, management meetings, and analysis of early-stage and venture activity.
- Develop and maintain a disciplined sourcing pipeline with a ranked, auditable view of potential platform and tuck-in opportunities, while continuously improving screening and diligence processes.
- Build trusted external and internal relationships with bankers, management teams, advisors, Hearst Health operating company leaders, and Hearst leadership.
- Strengthen the corporate development function by building automation and agents leveraging AI tools, improving processes, and, as needs evolve, building the business case for recruiting, onboarding, and managing a junior corporate development professional.
Must-Have Qualifications
- Significant experience in strategy, corporate development, management consulting, private equity, or a similarly rigorous environment, with demonstrated ability to lead complex end-to-end workstreams or transactions with limited oversight.
- Strong business and investment judgment, including the ability to form, articulate, and defend an independent perspective rather than simply present analysis.
- Excellent project leadership skills and the ability to manage multiple stakeholders, advisors, workstreams, and deadlines through complex deal processes.
- Executive presence and communication skills, with the ability to build credibility with senior bankers, management teams, operating executives, and corporate leadership.
- Strong financial modeling skills and fluency in Excel and PowerPoint.
- Intellectual curiosity and the ability to develop meaningful expertise in unfamiliar sectors quickly.
- A self-directed, collaborative approach and comfort operating in an environment where depth, selectivity, and quality of judgment matter more than transaction volume.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience developed through a leading management consultancy, private equity firm, corporate development team, or comparable strategy and investment environment.
- Exposure to healthcare, healthcare IT, information services, or software businesses.
- Experience evaluating opportunities through both strategic and financial lenses and connecting individual investments to broader portfolio strategy.
Compensation & Benefits
Salary for this role is expected to be between $200,000 and $250,000.
We are proud to offer generous health and wellness benefits, competitive paid time off, financial programs like 401(k) matching and tuition assistance, and additional perks like company matching for charitable donations.
Hearst is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
If you’re excited about the opportunity to help shape Hearst Health’s long-term growth but don’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. You might be just the right fit.
Skills Required
- Significant experience in strategy, corporate development, management consulting, private equity, or a similarly rigorous environment
- Demonstrated ability to lead complex end-to-end workstreams or transactions with limited oversight
- Strong business and investment judgment
- Ability to form, articulate, and defend an independent perspective
- Excellent project leadership skills
- Ability to manage multiple stakeholders, advisors, workstreams, and deadlines through complex deal processes
- Executive presence and communication skills
- Ability to build credibility with senior bankers, management teams, operating executives, and corporate leadership
- Strong financial modeling skills
- Fluency in Excel and PowerPoint
- Intellectual curiosity and ability to develop meaningful expertise in unfamiliar sectors quickly
- Self-directed and collaborative approach
- Comfort operating in an environment where depth, selectivity, and quality of judgment matter more than transaction volume
- Experience developed through a leading management consultancy, private equity firm, corporate development team, or comparable strategy and investment environment
- Exposure to healthcare, healthcare IT, information services, or software businesses
- Experience evaluating opportunities through both strategic and financial lenses
- Experience connecting individual investments to broader portfolio strategy
Hearst Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Hearst and has not been reviewed or approved by Hearst.
-
Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as comprehensive, including medical plan choice, full in-network preventive coverage, dental and vision, telemedicine, prescription coverage, and fertility resources. Mental-health resources and other wellbeing services (e.g., therapy sessions, crisis support, virtual physical therapy, and chronic-condition programs) further strengthen the health offering.
-
Retirement Support — Retirement support is positioned as meaningful through a 401(k) plan with company matching and Hearst covering plan administration fees. Performance bonuses are also noted as available in some roles, adding an additional rewards component beyond base pay.
-
Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off benefits include paid holidays, paid sick days, and vacation time with a commonly cited annual range, alongside paid parental leave and family medical leave. A remote work program and flexibility signals are also included as part of the overall rewards experience.
Hearst Insights
Am I A Good Fit?
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.
Success! Refresh the page to see how your skills align with this role.
The Company
What We Do
Hearst is a leading global, diversified media, information and services company with more than 360 businesses. Its major interests include ownership in cable television networks such as A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime and ESPN; global financial services leader Fitch Group; Hearst Health, a group of medical information and services businesses; transportation assets including CAMP Systems International, a major provider of software-as-a-service solutions for managing maintenance of jets and helicopters; 33 television stations such as WCVB-TV in Boston and KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California, which reach a combined 19 percent of U.S. viewers; newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle and Times Union (Albany, New York); more than 300 magazines around the world, including Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Men's Health and Car and Driver, and digital services businesses such as iCrossing and KUBRA; and investments in emerging digital entertainment companies such as Complex Networks.
