In the six years since The Beacon launched, our city, region and country have changed in innumerable ways. 

So has The Beacon. 

Hilary Becker has been part of The Beacon’s story from our earliest days. She first worked with the organization as a contractor in 2020 before joining the team full time in 2021. Since then, she has helped shape nearly every stage of The Beacon’s growth.

She joined The Beacon as audience and product manager and was promoted to director of product in 2023. Since then, she’s led the development and launch of new products that make our journalism more accessible and help us reach tens of thousands of readers across Kansas and Missouri. Under her leadership, newsletter engagement has grown 42% since January 2025.

Hilary has consistently worked to keep The Beacon at the forefront of nonprofit news, bringing back ideas and frameworks from national programs including the American Journalism Project’s Product and AI Studio, the Product Immersion program sponsored by the Craig Newmark  Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, the News Product Alliance and the Google News Initiative.

One of Hilary’s biggest accomplishments was leading the creation of our new website, transforming how readers experience our journalism. She has also helped guide The Beacon through years of change, from shifts in search and social algorithms to the rapid emergence of AI. Through it all, she’s been a steady, thoughtful leader who has kept our focus on serving readers and building a stronger organization.

As our new chief operating officer, Hilary will build on this work, helping to lead our team and set priorities while overseeing the Documenters program and our civic engagement work, continuing to grow our audience and membership, and more. 

I couldn’t be more excited to see Hilary become The Beacon’s inaugural chief operating officer. Few people have had a greater impact on The Beacon’s growth, and I can’t wait to see what she’ll accomplish in this new role.