Dave Zinczenko, the driver behind Men’s Health and its best-selling book franchise Eat This, Not That!, is going back to his Rodale roots as he staffs up his new venture, Galvanized Brands.
George Karabotsos, who until recently was creative director of Rodale Books and before that served as creative director of Men's Health for 10 years, joins Galvanized as its creative director. Ray Jobst, a 15-year Rodale employee who most recently was vp, finance director of Rodale’s Healthy Living Group, becomes senior vp of finance and business affairs for Zinczenko's company. Karabotsos and Jobst were not poaches, as both were let go from Rodale in recent months.
A third hire is PR man Jonathan Hammond, who leaves Condé Nast's Wired to reunite with Zinczenko, with whom he worked on Men’s Health. Hammond, who has also repped Condé Nast Traveler and NBA, will serve as chief strategy officer of Galvanized, overseeing media and PR.
Zinczenko started Galvanized with colleague and pal Stephen Perrine. The pair was dismissed from Rodale last November after clashing with company CEO Maria Rodale, who felt Zinczenko—who has appeared on many TV shows through the years, including Today, The Biggest Loser and The Oprah Winfrey Show, and is also a fixture of the Manhattan media scene—was overshadowing the brands and wanted to move beyond diet books. Last month, Zinczenko joined ABC News as nutrition and wellness editor and will appear on all the network's programs and platforms.
Galvanized is a branding and media company specializing in health and wellness, and which applies Zinczenko and Perrine's years of health and fitness know-how from Rodale. They are also consulting to fitness/celebrity publisher American Media Inc.
"The speed at which Galvanized Brands and its subsidiaries is growing has been really inspiring," Zinczenko said. "Authors and media companies definitely understand that the old way of doing business is falling away and that building synergistic partnerships is crucial to unlocking brand value."
Meanwhile, Zinczenko is about to release his first book under his Zinc Ink imprint, a co-publication with Random House with tennis star Novak Djokovic called Serve to Win, due out Aug. 20 to coincide with the U.S. Open. The connection paid off for AMI, whose Men’s Fitness secured Djokovic for its cover.
Next up from Zinc Ink: fitness expert and former boxing champ Michael Olajide's Sleekify, plus TV personality Maria Menounos' next two books. It also plans to publish up to six AMI-branded books in the next six months, including Bikini Body Diet by Shape editor in chief Tara Kraft, along with the BBD Cookbook and Bikini-Ready Clean Green Drinks; The Men's Fitness Exercise Bible; and 1,001 Natural Health Remedies from the editors of Natural Health.