White: she has passion for the high street
Company deputy editor Victoria White has beaten stiff competition to clinch the job of editor of the glossy.
White, who has worked on magazines in Australia and the US, said she had always wanted to edit a women’s glossy in the UK.
She will replace Sam Baker, who is leaving to write a book after singing a six-figure publishing deal.
White joined Company three and a half years ago as deputy, after being deputy editor on rival B. Before that she worked as Los Angeles bureau chief for Pacific Publications and in Australia as editor of Inside TV., having trained in the UK on Inside Soap.
White said she planned to build on Company’s strengths, including its features and high street fashion coverage, and to draw on her celebrity contacts.
“I’m not a personal friend of George Clooney or anything like that, but my background is pretty much celebrity,” she told Press Gazette. “I always wanted to get into women’s magazines in Britain, but I kind of had to go around the world to do it.”
There were no immediate plans for a relaunch or a shake-up of the team, she said. “It’s a bit like taking up at Manchester United – you’re not going to get a new team in and start again with a new strategy because that would be madness. But, obviously, we need to keep moving on, building on our strengths. We really do own the high street and that’s something I am passionate about.”
Company reported its highest ABC figure to date in August, up 6 per cent to 330,617, following an increase of 26.5 per cent in February. The magazine has put on 100,000 extra sales over the past two years, partly due to its editorial and price-cutting strategy to stop readers moving to Glamour.
“The whole package is working so well,” said White. “It’s a brilliant mix of high street fashion, mustread features and investigations that no one else is doing. It’s definitely a case of moving all that on.”
By Ruth Addicott
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