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Comings & Goings | Oct 10, 2018 |
Hearst axes House Beautiful’s editorial leadership, moves Veranda back to the South
Boh staff
By Staff

Hearst Design Group has been disbanded, and 15 employees were let go from House Beautiful and Veranda. The bloodbath includes HDG editorial director Newell Turner, House Beautiful editor in chief Sophie Donelson, HDG market director Sabine Rothman, and interiors editors Carolyn Englefield and Doretta Sperduto, among others. All of Veranda’s editorial has been let go except for Dayle Wood, who will be the New York representative for the brand. Elle Decor remains largely untouched—at least for now.

Joanna Saltz has been named editorial director of House Beautiful, directing print and digital content across platforms. Saltz relaunched HouseBeautiful.com in June, changing the brand’s editorial direction entirely. Sources tell BOH that Saltz will be hiring a new editorial team to run the print magazine.

Veranda’s editorial operations will move to Birmingham, Alabama, joining Hearst’s Country Living in the region; Steele Marcoux, most recently the style director of Country Living, will serve as Veranda’s editor in chief—filling a position left vacant by Clinton Smith. She was previously editor in chief of Coastal Living, and before that, the magazine’s executive editor.

The moves are part of a company-wide announcement “which reflects an evolution for the organization toward a unified approach to content creation, sales and marketing,” according to Hearst president and CEO Steven R. Swartz and Hearst Magazines president Troy Young, who was promoted to the role in July.

The new leadership appointments report to Hearst Magazines chief content officer Kate Lewis, who replaced Joanna Coles, and combine print and digital teams under one leader. In the case of Men’s Health, Women’s Health, and Popular Mechanics, the print editor oversees the digital brand; at Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, and now House Beautiful, the reverse is true.

The new editors, Lewis said in a statement, “are experts at creating content and experiences that engage and entertain audiences. … They understand their readers in a very profound way, and they’re passionate about producing stories in all formats, on all platforms, that inform, surprise, drive conversation and create a feeling of community.”

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