Cosmopolitan Editor Joanna Coles has raided Rodale’s Women’s Health for a new creative director.
Theresa Griggs replaces Tracy Everding, who was a carryover from the Kate White era, the editor who had run Cosmo for 14 years before stepping down 18 months ago.
“I first approached Theresa when I got to Cosmo,” said Coles, but at the time she said Griggs was not ready to move.
“The hardest part is the visual, and now we have that piece of the puzzle in place,” Coles added.
Often the installation of a new creative director is a preamble to a big redesign effort, but Coles said that is not the route for her.
“I’m not a great believer in big redesigns. I believe in constantly tinkering and redesign by stealth. We just do it exponentially,” she said.
The new creative director completes an overhaul of the upper masthead in the 18 months since Coles took over.
She has changed the fashion director and the celebrity wrangler and added three deputy editors: Sara Austin from Self, Marina Khidekel from Glamour and Katie Connor from Marie Claire.
The only carryover now near the top of the masthead is beauty director Leah Wyar.
Joyce Chang, who followed Coles from Marie Claire to be Cosmo’s executive editor, was recently raided by Condé Nast to be the new editor of Self, replacing the ousted Lucy Danziger.
No replacement named yet for the executive editor post at Cosmo.