Up close and personal with Joanna Coles, Hearst’s new chief content officer

Joanna Coles, one of publishing’s biggest stars, is going to shine a bit brighter.

Hearst has named her “chief content officer” for its magazine unit, moving her up from her perch as Cosmo’s editor in chief. Hearst says Coles’s new title will let her work on “new magazine development activities, and spearhead efforts to extend Hearst brands into television, live events, and other new businesses.” The company will name a new Cosmo editor later today.

The promotion is a big one for Coles, but in retrospect not a surprising one.

Coles moved beyond the bounds of mere magazine editor some time ago, and is Hearst’s most high-profile talent. She’s the one, for instance, that has landed a board seat at Snapchat, the buzziest media platform of the moment.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Hearst gave Coles the promotion to make sure she stuck around. And it can’t be a coincidence that her new role seems quite similar to the one Condé Nast assigned to Vogue’s Anna Wintour, when it created an “artistic director” job for her three years ago.

Everyone who came to Recode’s Code Media conference this year got to see Coles’s star power up close and personal. She kicked off the event by appearing on stage in Kara Swisher’s trademark sunglasses and things got more interesting from there.

You can read a transcript of the fascinating interview here, and you can see the whole thing for yourself below:

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via