Joanna Coles to Ditch Cosmo for Bigger Hearst Role: 'I Just Didn't Have Another Sex Position in Me'
LatestJoanna Coles, who has served as Cosmopolitan’s editor-in-chief since 2012, is set to become Hearst’s answer to Anna Wintour as the company’s first “chief content officer,” the company announced on Tuesday. Michele Promaulayko, who previously served as editor-in-chief of Yahoo Health, has been announced as Coles’s replacement. Promaulayko also served as executive editor of Cosmo from 2000 to 2008, and is the author of books Look Better Naked and 20 Pounds Younger.
In an interview, Coles told the New York Times that she’d been ready to move on. She has also served as editorial director of Seventeen since 2014 (Promaulayko will take over this position as well), likely an indication to higher-ups that she was capable of managing multiple brand identities. “I love Cosmo, but I gave it everything I had,” she said. “I just didn’t have another sex position in me.”
In her 4 years at Cosmo, Coles has gotten herself a lot of press for what she’s presented as maintaining the basic DNA of the mag while presumably adding meatier coverage of politics and feminist issues like abortion and genital mutilation, all the while—somehow—managing to extend the already-powerful brand’s reach in an increasingly dark era for print magazines. Cosmopolitan.com, meanwhile, is far outpacing its competitors with 14.9 million unique visitors per month (Elle.com gets 7.7 million, Glamour.com is at 10.3, Vogue.com at 11 million).
Although Coles is an accomplished journalist and editor, having done stints at the Guardian, the Times of London, and New York Magazine before moving on to top positions at Marie Claire and Cosmo, her move to “chief content officer”—no title could better evoke the strangled integrity of a dying industry—is framed more in a business context. Whaddya know!