Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, 84, has backed off from day-to-day involvement in the company, according to
a report in
The Observer.
The shift has resulted in a culture change, the article said.
Recent hires “have dramatically altered the character of the company’s leadership,” the article said. Consumer marketer Bob Sauerberg, now Condé Nast’s president, promised the controlling Newhouse family board that he would bring in millions in non-advertising revenue,
The Observer
reported. Sauerberg has “reconfigured the top of the company to look less like a magazine publisher, and more like a sales and marketing organization,” according to the report. “The new management structure crowds out the once-crucial editorial director.” Much of the print corporate sales staff has been laid off, the article said.
Si Newhouse, whose full name is Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., was the eldest son of newspaper mogul Samuel Irving Newhouse. Si learned at the feet of mentors such as Condé Nast editor Leo Lerman and artist Alexander Liberman, read every line of copy when he worked at
Glamour
and
Vogue
, and discovered talented editors like Tina Brown, the profile reported.
Citing the book
Newhouse
by Thomas Maier, the article said a tax loophole that expires on the death of the family’s second generation will leave the third generation with “an unprecedented tax burden.”
The Observer
report noted Si’s first cousin Jonathan, who runs Condé Nast’s international business, “is said to be happily stationed in Europe.” Si’s nephew Steven Newhouse, chairman of the family’s Advance Publications, has been cutting the frequency of Advance’s print newspapers in order to focus on digital. Steven’s wife, Gina Sanders, who is CEO of Condé Nast’s sister company, Fairchild, is said to be “a favorite internal candidate to replace Si.” But the article said that as Condé Nast diversifies its business, a sale of the magazines is not unthinkable. (Source:
The Observer,
Aug. 1, 2012.)
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