Vikas Khorana, Stephens Media’s director of information technology and digital media, was recently named to Editor & Publisher’s “Publishing Leaders — 25 Under 35” list.

Stephens Media is a publisher of the local Las Vegas Review Journal.   Vikas, 35, recently got promoted to the position of Director of Information Technology and Digital Media for the Stephens Media.  He was previously the Director of Information Technology for the Las Vegas Review Journal and has been with the company since  2001.
In a posting on mediainfo.com, Editor & Publisher said the awards recognize next-generation newspaper publishing leaders, who are young, bright and capable of tackling whatever the changing newspaper climate throws at them.
“(They are) people with business acumen to lead through trying times and vision to implement bold, new strategies to move their newspapers forward,” E&P said.
As reported in April 2011 issue of the Editor and Publisher, some people see Vikas Khorana as a visionary. He sees himself as a hardnosed negotiator. Either way, he’s constantly on the lookout for opportunities to cut costs. By renegotiating existing IT contracts with vendors or using open source (performance testing) tools to implement a solution, he makes an impact. Khorana has been directly responsible for establishing an internal information technology customer service division for the company’s many newspapers across 10 states and has reduced the overall operating expenses related to IT services.
He led key digital media initiatives, including online coupon sales, centralization of advertising operations, and classified ad sales — making a significant impact, not only on Stephens Media, but also on its flagship paper, the 142,476 circulation Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Khorana, who hails from New Delhi, India, came to the U.S. 11 years ago and already sounds like a typical American businessperson. “My main goal has always been to bring the cost of doing business down,” he said.

Nominees for this prestigious award were publishers, editors, advertising executives, circulation managers and other newspaper leaders 35 and younger who own or work for print newspapers or online-only former newspapers.