Donald E. Graham

Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Graham Holdings Company

 

Donald E. Graham became chief executive officer of Graham Holdings Company (then The Washington Post Company) in May 1991 and chairman of the board in September 1993. He was publisher of The Washington Post newspaper from January 1979 until September 2000 and chairman of the paper from September 2000 to February 2008. 

Graham was born on April 22, 1945, in Baltimore, Maryland, a son of Philip L. and Katharine Meyer Graham. His father was publisher of The Washington Post from 1946 until 1961 and president of The Washington Post Company from 1947 until his death in 1963. His mother, Katharine Graham, served in a variety of executive positions from 1963 until her death in 2001. Eugene Meyer, Graham's grandfather, purchased The Washington Post at a bankruptcy sale in 1933. 

After graduating in 1966 from Harvard College, where he was president of the Harvard Crimson, Graham was drafted and served as an information specialist with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. He was a patrolman with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department from January 1969 to June 1970. Graham joined The Washington Post newspaper in 1971 as a reporter and subsequently held several news and business positions at the newspaper and at Newsweek. He was named executive vice president and general manager of the newspaper in 1976. 

He was elected a director of The Washington Post Company in 1974 and served as president from May 1991 to September 1993. 

Graham is chairman of the District of Columbia College Access Program, a private foundation which, since 1999, has helped double the number of DC public high school students going on to college and has helped triple the number graduating from college. He co-founded the program along with major local businesses and foundations. Since its inception, DC-CAP has assisted over 13,000 DC students enroll in college and has provided scholarships totaling more than $18 million. 

Graham is a trustee of the Federal City Council and of the Philip L. Graham Fund, which was established in 1963 in memory of his father. He is also a director and member of the compensation committee of Facebook, The Summit Fund of Washington, the College Success Foundation and KIPP-DC. Previously, he served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board.