Amidst reports of in-fighting, Joanna Coles, Hearst Magazines’ chief content officer, is to leave the publisher’s New York offices after 13 years.
British-born Coles joined Hearst in 2006 as editor-in-chief of Marie Claire. She later held the editor-in-chief position at Cosmopolitan from 2012 until 2016, following which she was promoted to the new role of chief content officer.
The promotion put Coles in charge of all 300 of the company’s titles; as such, she is widely considered to be one of the most influential people in media.
Michael Wolff, a writer close to Coles, told The Times that the departure stems from an “internal power struggle”, with Coles said to be frustrated by the appointment of Troy Young as president of Hearst’s magazine division.
“What’s happening here is happening across the magazine business. It’s everybody leaving a sinking ship as fast as they can,” Wolff said.
Recent months have seen a number of other high profile shake-ups in the magazine publishing industry. Both Dawn Ostroff, president of Condé Nast Entertainment, and chief experience officer Josh Stinchcomb, have announced that they will be departing Condé Nast’s New York offices this year.
Meanwhile, Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue and The New Yorker, put titles Brides, Golf Digest and W up for sale last week. Elsewhere, Meredith is looking to sell Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money, following its acquisition of Time Inc (now TI Media) in November 2017.
