Katherine Green

Katherine Green, a veteran television news executive who stepped down last fall after six years at CNN Worldwide, was named senior vice president of news for Tribune Broadcasting Thursday.

Green will oversee news production and news operations for all 42 Tribune Broadcasting stations (including Chicago flagship WGN-Channel 9) and will report to Larry Wert, president of broadcast media. Her appointment, effective May 5, completes the executive management team Wert has been assembling since he began in February 2013.

Wert called Green “a visionary leader whose background in local broadcasting and news programming will bring value to our station’s broadcast and digital newsrooms.”

The position has been vacant since Steve Charlier left Tribune Broadcast in September 2013 after serving as senior vice president of news and operations and later as senior vice president of local media. His duties were divided, with Devin Johnson overseeing digital media, Steve Farber overseeing broadcast operations, and now Green overseeing news.

“To help me collaborate and make this a more relevant television station group, I needed a leadership team and I needed someone in each competency,” Wert said in an interview. “That’s been the goal.”

The executive management team also includes chief operating officers Lynda King and Kathy Clements, chief financial officer Michael Tuvell, and Sean Compton over programming and acquisitions, Angela Betasso over sales, Toni Falvo over research, Hank Hundemer over engineering, and Sandra Hasan Arredondo over human resources. (That's six women in top executive positions, in case you're keeping track.)

Green joined CNN in January 2008 as senior vice president and general manager of CNN International Network and later was named senior vice president and managing editor of HLN Network. She left last November as new general manager Albie Hecht moved to refocus HLN's prime-time and daytime strategy.

Before that Green had been news director at WTTG-TV, the Fox-owned station in Washington, D.C., and WBAL-TV, the NBC affiliate in Baltimore. She previously was a producer at stations in New York, Miami and Tampa, Florida.

“Tribune is one of the largest broadcasting companies in America, with a legacy of championing the public's need for information,” Green said in a statement. “This is a rare and unique opportunity to simultaneously preserve and evolve that legacy for generations to come.”