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Phillip PicardiAmerican journalist and editor
Date of Birth: 05.04.1991
Country:  USA |
Content:
Early Life and Education
Born into a Catholic family in Boston, Phillip Picardi attended Central Catholic High School. In 2008, he co-founded the annual Catwalk4Cancer student fundraiser, which has raised over $250,000 as of 2017. After graduating high school, Picardi enrolled at New York University.
Early Career
Picardi's publishing career began as an intern at Teen Vogue. He then worked as an online beauty editor at Teen Vogue before becoming senior beauty editor at Refinery29 in September 2014. At Refinery29, he worked with Mickey Halpin, whose influence along with Picardi's personal experiences led to an increased interest in political activism alongside his work on beauty; he told The Guardian that his experiences growing up gay in a Catholic household meant "I could definitely relate to what it means to be underrepresented or even marginalized. I would go to sex ed and there was no mention of homosexuality. I would sit in religion class and hear that my life was a sin."
Return to Teen Vogue
In April 2015, Picardi returned to Teen Vogue as digital editorial director. He became part of the magazine's leadership reorganization the following year when editor Elaine Welteroth, creative director Marie Suter, and Picardi replaced outgoing founding editor-in-chief Amy Astley. Picardi oversaw Teen Vogue's web content and social media, significantly increasing the traffic to its website; he was also part of the magazine's shift in focus to social issues and politics, a part of its pitch when he joined Teen Vogue. He told Teen Vogue's hiring team that he felt the magazine's success was tied to its willingness to offer more for its reader: "I thought it was really important to talk about reproductive rights, gender. To dive deep into politics and the news cycle. We had kind of assumed that she wasn't interested in it." His vision was to "connect TeenVogue.com to every aspect of its socially conscious readers' lives": the politics section now outranked entertainment as the site's most read section. Under Picardi, TeenVogue.com also won the 2017 Webby Awards in both the "Fashion & Beauty" and "Education & Discovery" categories. He left the magazine and Condé Nast in August 2018.
Them and Out
In March 2017, Picardi's role at Condé Nast expanded when he became digital editorial director of Them in addition to Teen Vogue. Under Picardi, Them also saw a significant rise in web traffic: in April 2017, it saw a 53% increase year over year (6.9 million versus 4.5 million in April 2016). He left the magazine and Condé Nast in August 2018.
In August 2018, Pride Media Inc. announced Picardi as the new Editor-in-Chief of Out. Picardi was fired from Out in December 2019, calling it "the most challenging chapter in my career to date."
