Phillip Picardi

Phillip Picardi (born April 5, 1991) is an American journalist and editor. He is the former editor-in-chief of ''Out''.

His career in journalism began at ''Teen Vogue''. He also worked for ''Refinery29'' and '' Allure''.

Early life and education

Picardi grew up in Boston to a Catholic family.

Picardi attended Central Catholic High School, where in 2008 he was one of the founders of a now-annual student fundraiser called Catwalk4Cancer; the 2017 event raised more than $250,000. After graduating from high school, Picardi attended college at New York University.

Career

Picardi started his publishing career as an intern at ''Teen Vogue''. He then served as online beauty editor at ''Teen Vogue'' before becoming senior beauty editor at ''Refinery29'' in September 2014. At ''Refinery29'' he worked for Mikki Halpin, whose influence as well as Picardi's personal experiences led to a growing interest in political engagement alongside his work on beauty; speaking to ''The Guardian'', he said his experience growing up gay in a Catholic family meant "I can certainly relate to what it feels like to be underrepresented or even marginalized. I took sex ed classes and there was no mention of homosexuality. Or I would sit in religion class and be told my life was a sin." Since June 2020, Picard has hosted a podcast about this subject called ''Unholier Than Thou'', part of the Crooked Media podcast network.

''Teen Vogue''

Picardi returned to ''Teen Vogue'' as digital editorial director in April 2015, the next year becoming part of a reorganization of the magazine's leadership with editor Elaine Welteroth, creative director Marie Suter and Picardi replacing departing founding editor-in-chief Amy Astley. Picardi oversees web content and social media for ''Teen Vogue'', significantly increasing traffic to its website; in January 2017, the magazine's website had 7.9 million US visitors compared with 2.9 million the previous January. He has also been part of the magazine's shift in focus on social issues and politics, part of his pitch when he joined the magazine. He told the hiring team at ''Teen Vogue'' that he felt the magazine's success depended on offering more to its reader: "I thought it was really important to talk about reproductive rights, gender. To dig into politics and the news cycle. Basically, by omission, we were kind of assuming that she's not interested." With the growth the site has seen through this approach, ''Fast Company'' named Picardi to its "Most Creative People" in 2017, "for reading teenagers' minds" in his work to "align TeenVogue.com with every aspect of its socially conscious readers' lives": the politics section has now surpassed entertainment as the site's most-read section. Under Picardi, TeenVogue.com also won 2017 Webby Awards for both the Fashion & Beauty and the Education & Discovery categories. He left the magazine and Condé Nast in August 2018.

''Them''

In March 2017, his role at Condé Nast expanded to become as digital editorial director for ''Them'' as well as ''Teen Vogue.'' Under Picardi's leadership, ''Them'' has also seen a significant rise in web traffic: April 2017 had a 53% increase over the prior year (6.9 million over 4.5 million in April 2016). He left the magazine and Condé Nast in August 2018.

''Out''

In August 2018, Pride Media Inc. announced Picardi as the new editor-in-chief of ''Out''. Picardi was let go from ''Out'' in December 2019, describing it as “the most complex chapter of my career so far”.

References

Further reading

Phillip Picardi and Elaine Welteroth
on ''The Daily Show with Trevor Noah'' (February 13, 2017)

External links

Phillip Picardi
at ''Teen Vogue''
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Picardi, Phillip
Condé Nast people
American magazine editors
Living people
New York University alumni
People from Boston
LGBT people from Massachusetts
Fashion editors
American writers of Italian descent
Journalists from Massachusetts
21st-century American journalists
1991 births