Elle publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media named a new president and CEO on Tuesday, announcing that Steve Parr — former Primedia president — will take the reins from Alain Lemarchand, who will move to an unspecified senior management role within Lagardère Active, Hachette’s parent company.
Lemarchand was appointed to president and CEO in September 2008 to help turn around the magazine division’s sinking fortunes.
Parr’s job, according to Lagardère chief Didier Quillot, will be “to increase market share for all brands and maintain strong leadership of Elle, to pursue the digital development in automotive through Jumpstart Automotive Group and women's segments, and to implement profitable marketing and monetization strategy integrating print and digital. He will leverage the brand-centric strategy and organization. Finally, Parr's focus will be on increasing the business profitability.”
Elle managed to increase its advertising pages 5.7 percent during the first half of 2010, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Ad revenue jumped more than 8 percent to $125 million.
Last year, ad pages for Elle fell more than 20 percent.
Hachette also publishes Woman's Day, Car and Driver, Road & Track and Cycle World magazines, Premiere.com and Glo, a digital women’s lifestyle brand Hachette launched in April with MSN and Lloyd Braun’s BermanBraun Productions as partners.
