CNN Social Media Director to Succeed Cindi Leive at Glamour

Samantha Barry, the executive producer for social and emerging media at CNN Worldwide, has been named Glamour Magazine’s next editor-in-chief, the New York Times reports. She will succeed Cindi Leive, who helmed the publication for 16 years before “abruptly” announcing her departure in September.

Barry, 36, has never worked at a magazine and has no print experience, which is in line with earlier reports that the higher-ups at Condé Nast were looking for a “nontraditional” candidate to lead Glamour’s next iteration. Before CNN, she was a social media producer and journalist at BBC World News and a media trainer for the U.S. State Department; she was born in Ireland, and is apparently a close friend of Amal Clooney.

“We recognized at once that Sam would be the perfect editor for a new more ambitious era of Glamour’s future,” Anna Wintour told the Times. “We can not wait to see her vision unfold.”

Newsstand sales at Glamour have fallen significantly since 2014, and advertising revenue is down. In November, Condé Nast announced yet another round of layoffs, reduced the number of annual issues of GQ, Glamour, Allure, and Architectural Digest from 12 to 11, and closed the print edition of Teen Vogue. (I worked at Glamour from 2013-2015.)

“At the end of the day, I bring to the table being an expert in content,” Barry told the Times. “I also bring to the table the ability to pivot.” Music, I’m sure, to the ears of employees who have been living in a near-constant state of “restructuring.”