Fabián Horacio Fernández, Secretary of Communication and Press

A broadcaster trained at ETER, he cut his teeth in the channels and radio stations of the southern area, passed through government communication and the press operation of the country’s main oil company. At the end of June 2026, he took office as Secretary of Press and Media of the Nation, replacing Javier Lanari.

At 35, Fabián Horacio Fernández is the new Secretary of Press and Media of the Argentine Nation. He arrives replacing Javier Lanari and takes on the role after leading, until just a few days ago, YPF’s relationship with the press. The appointment, at the end of June 2026, marks a new stage in a fifteen-year path that began far from any official office: in the studios of a cable channel in Lanús, reading news for the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires.

The voice that began on a cable channel

He was born in Valentín Alsina, in the district of Lanús, and never fully detached himself from that map. Before any position, there was a title: national broadcaster, a graduate of the Escuela Terciaria de Estudios Radiofónicos (ETER), with registration number 10067, where he studied between 2009 and 2011. There he learned the craft where it is truly learned —the voice, the construction of content, the timing of radio and screen— and went out to find a place in the media closest at hand, those of his own territory.

His own programs in the southern conurbano

Between 2011 and 2014, he immersed himself fully in the Lanús media ecosystem. He hosted and commented on the news program Telecreativa, broadcast on the area’s Channel 5, which covered politics, economics, culture, society and sports across a corridor of nine municipalities, from Lanús to Ezeiza. That coverage brought him face to face with the problems of a large part of Greater Buenos Aires. In parallel, he produced and hosted Escenario Industrial, dedicated to SMEs 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 exercise —asking questions, moderating, reading the situation— would later serve him in much more turbulent waters.

Press for chambers, unions and ceremonial events

Between 2014 and 2015, he advised business and union entities from the productive sector on press matters. At the Industrial Union of Avellaneda, he hosted the radio program Generación Industrial on FM 98.7 and worked on the institution’s magazine. He collaborated with the Argentine Federation of Bakery and Related Workers’ Union Personnel during Abel Frutos’s leadership, the largest union in the bakery sector in the country, and with the chamber that brings together German companies with subsidiaries in Argentina. During those years, he was also the official voice at Renault vehicle delivery events in different locations across Buenos Aires province, a ceremonial role before highly varied audiences.

The leap into municipal management

The major turn came in December 2015, when Néstor Grindetti, newly elected mayor of Lanús, brought him into his Communications team. He began as press director and, over time, rose to the Undersecretariat of Press and New Media. Those were eight years with relations with the media, the mayor’s public agenda, protocol, ceremonial matters and official social media under his orbit. There he learned something no formal study can teach: how to sustain a message when the situation becomes dense and a crisis must be handled without letting the tremor show.

From the campaign with Vidal to YPF’s press operation

Shortly 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. The ticket surpassed 45% of the votes, and for Fabián Fernández it was his first electoral communication assignment with a national benchmark. Then came YPF: in December 2023, after Javier Milei’s runoff victory, Guillermo Garat, vice president of Communications, Institutional Relations and Marketing at the oil company, called him to join as press and media manager. The area grew until it became the Directorate of Media, Press and Strategic Alliances. 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 teams of the YPF Group’s investee companies —Metrogas, YPF Luz, Mega and Profertil, among others— until his move to the national Government.

Now, the communication of the State

The path —from the radio stations of Lanús to municipal management, and from the Buenos Aires City campaign to a strategic company— now leads to the most exposed position of his career. Fabián Horacio Fernández takes over the communication of the national State with a profile that combines territory, politics and corporation, and with a set of tools he sharpened at each of those levels. He takes over from Javier Lanari at the head of an area where every definition has an impact on the country’s public agenda, without having fully let go, along the way, of the roots of the southern conurbano where he first used the microphone. His first steps in the role will become known in the coming days.