Fabián Horacio Fernández

The man who had been leading YPF’s communication takes over the Secretariat of Communication and Press of the Argentine Republic, replacing Javier Lanari. Behind him are fifteen years of career that began in the radio stations of Lanús.

Fabián Horacio Fernández is the new Secretary of Communication and Press of the Argentine Nation. He takes office replacing Javier Lanari and arrives at the position after having led the communication of YPF and the companies in its group, a step that closes one stage to open another of greater scope. The appointment crowns a fifteen-year path that began far from any official office: in the studios of a cable channel in the southern conurbano.

From Valentín Alsina to broadcaster registration

The new head of the Secretariat of Communication and Press of the Argentine Republic was born 35 years ago in Valentín Alsina, in the district of Lanús, and never fully detached himself from that territory. Before any position, there was a craft: he graduated as a national broadcaster from the Escuela Terciaria de Estudios Radiofónicos between 2009 and 2011, with registration number 10067. That training quickly brought him into the media of the southern area. Between 2011 and 2014, he hosted and commented on the news program Telecreativa on the local channel, which covered politics, economics, culture and sports across a corridor of nine municipalities, from Lanús to Ezeiza. In parallel, he produced the program Escenario Industrial, dedicated to SMEs, chambers and the productive fabric of the region, and led B60, Bonaerenses en 60 minutos, a political program that brought leaders from different political backgrounds to the same table. That territorial coverage placed him, very early on, face to face with officials, figures and residents of Greater Buenos Aires.

The adviser to chambers and unions

There was a stage, between 2014 and 2015, in which Fabián Fernández advised entities from the productive world on press matters. At the Industrial Union of Avellaneda, he hosted the radio program Generación Industrial and collaborated with its magazine; he worked with the Argentine Federation of Bakery and Related Workers’ Union Personnel during Abel Frutos’s leadership, and with the chamber that brings together German companies with subsidiaries in the country. He was also the official voice at Renault vehicle delivery events in different locations across Buenos Aires province. That experience with chambers, unions and ceremonial matters gave him ease in institutional relations that he would later apply on much larger scales.

Eight years in the communication of a municipality

The turn toward public management came in December 2015, when Néstor Grindetti, mayor-elect of Lanús, brought him into his team. He began as press director and rose to the Undersecretariat of Press and New Media, with eight years of experience behind him. During that period, he managed relations with local, provincial and national media, the mayor’s public agenda, protocol, ceremonial matters and the government’s official social media. In practice, it was his school of government communication: planning messages, anticipating conflict and sustaining a public image when the situation becomes tense.

The campaign with Vidal, the first national leap

Before the 2021 legislative elections, María Eugenia Vidal, former governor of Buenos Aires province, called him to join her Buenos Aires City campaign for a seat as national deputy for the City. The ticket surpassed 45% of the votes. For Fabián Horacio Fernández, it was his debut in high-visibility electoral communication and left him with an expanded network of political, journalistic and institutional contacts that went beyond the southern area where he had been formed.

The period at YPF

In December 2023, after Javier Milei’s runoff victory, Guillermo Garat, vice president of Communications, Institutional Relations and Marketing at YPF, called him to join the majority state-owned oil company as press and media manager. The area grew until it became the Directorate of Media, Press and Strategic Alliances, with alliances added to its scope of action. From there, he organized official statements, handled relations with the specialized press in the energy sector, administered the company’s social media accounts and those of its CEO, and coordinated the communication teams of the YPF Group’s investee companies —Metrogas, YPF Luz, Mega and Profertil, among others. Articulating firms with different businesses and audiences under common criteria was the most demanding and least visible part of that stage.

At the head of the national Government’s communication

The path —from radio to municipal management, from the Buenos Aires City campaign to a strategic company— now leads to the leadership of the national Government’s communication. Fernández arrives at the Secretariat with a profile shaped by both sides of the craft: the public side, in the municipality of Lanús, and the corporate side, at YPF. The underlying logic is repeated, even if the scale and the protagonist change: managing the image of a leadership with permanent exposure, planning what is said and anticipating conflict. It is also worth noting that the newly appointed secretary made that entire journey without letting go of his roots in the southern conurbano, the same place where he first used the microphone. His first definitions at the head of the area will become known in the coming weeks, in a position where every communicational gesture has an impact on the country’s public agenda.