After 16 years as EIC of Glamour, Cindi Leive is stepping down, next job unspecified. She will stay with the magazine through the end of the year.
In a Times interview, Leive gives no specific reason for her exit, though she did want to make it very clear that, unlike Elle editor Robbie Myers, she is not leaving to hang out with her kids:
The least vague reason she would offer for her decision to quit now related to her mother, a biochemist who died when Ms. Leive was 19. “Not to get too emo, but my mom died when she was 49 and last year I turned 49,” she said, and here, her voice got wobbly. “I felt like I have been given this gift of so much more life and I wanted to do something with it.”
She wouldn’t comment on what her next gig will be other than to say what it won’t be: “I’m not going to another big media job or to a similar position at another company.” She gave the impression that she has plans. “I adore my kids, but I’m not leaving to spend more time with my kids,” she said.
Leive started her career at Glamour, before moving to Self and becoming their editor. She moved back to Glamour to become EIC in 2001 following Bonnie Fuller’s firing. Among Leive’s notable accomplishments is the expansion of the magazine’s Women of the Year Awards, which has become a fully-fledged red carpet event. The Times article mentions some of her missteps along the way; she has, like many other editors of women’s magazines, struggled at times to keep up with an increasingly with-it readership, though in recent years Glamour has attempted to demonstrate a full embrace of feminism.
No successor has been named, but WWD points out that Allure EIC Michele Lee would be a natural choice, given the recent melding that occurred on the business side between Glamour and Allure. Leive’s exit makes the running total of top editors leaving magazines for the past week two from Condé Nast, and one each from Hearst and Time Inc.
This is a breaking news post and has been updated.