Jeff D’Onofrio, ex-Tumblr leader, takes on role of acting CEO at the Washington Post.

After a notably turbulent period as CEO of The Washington Post, Will Lewis is stepping down following significant layoffs this week. Jeff D’Onofrio, who served as CEO of Tumblr from 2017 to 2022, will take over as acting CEO and publisher. D’Onofrio has been the CFO at the Post since June of last year, giving him a close-up view of the changes initiated by Jeff Bezos over the past nine months.

D’Onofrio’s background lacks extensive experience in traditional news media and is not marked by many standout achievements. He briefly held the position of general manager at Yahoo News while it was still under Verizon’s ownership before focusing entirely on Tumblr. During his time there, Tumblr attempted to revamp its image by banning adult content, which resulted in a 30 percent drop in traffic. Yahoo acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013, but by 2019, it was sold to Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, for reportedly less than $3 million.