Every year at the end of its annual publisher’s conference, Condé Nast hands out awards to its top-performing employees. Last night, CEO Chuck Townsend did the honors at Café Boulud at the Four Seasons resort in Palm Beach, and this time, it was the newbies' night.
Agnes Chapski, who was a first-time publisher when she was given Allure, won first place for Outstanding Business Performance as well as Publisher of the Year for a year in which the magazine ranked first in such metrics as total ad revenue growth, print ad profit growth and total ad profit growth at Condé Nast. Under Chapski, the magazine also doubled the operating profit of its previous most profitable year. This was the first time that Allure—also one of Adweek’s 2012 Hot List winners—received an award at the conference.
Lucy Kriz, who became publisher of W in October, succeeding Nina Lawrence, took second place in Outstanding Business Performance for the magazine’s 9 percent increase in ad pages, 12.5 percent increase in total ad revenue, and 16 percent increase in ad profit in all of 2012.
Last year’s Publisher of the Year, Vogue’s Susan Plagemann, won third place. Plagemann, who oversaw a 31.5 percent ad page increase (the magazine already ranks first in page count), also received the conference’s first-ever Three Year Plan award last night.
The Collaborative Leadership award went to Bon Appétit's Adam Rapoport and Pamela Drucker Mann, first-time editor in chief and publisher, respectively. Townsend noted that the magazine—which had never before received a publisher award—was the No. 1 title in U.S. newsstand growth for 2012. Things are already looking up for 2013: in the first quarter, the magazine’s ad pages rose 40 percent.
Townsend also handed out two corporate awards. Suzanne Reinhardt, vp of finance and operations at Fairchild Fashion Media, received the FFM Corporate Executive of the Year trophy for improving the division’s profit and loss by 25 percent in 2012, while David Orlin, Condé’s svp of operations and strategic sourcing, was named Condé Nast Corporate Executive of the Year.