Women In Media: Edwina McCann, Vogue’s Editor-In-Chief

The always stylish Edwina McCann is today’s Women in Media focus. Here, the Vogue editor-in-chief tells B&T about being in the ed’s chair with two twins, why she’s a huge fan of the Ys and her tips for thoroughly modern magazine journalists…

I was always very passionate about the Vogue brand and very, very happy to come back to it…
Media constantly evolves and marries the creative with the commercial so successfully. You get to work with the best of the best; the best commercial minds and journalists who are bright thinkers and inquisitive people interested in getting to the bottom of things.

Good leadership is about self-motivation and keeping the people who work for you on the correct track…
Having a vision and being able to articulate it, especially when you talk about the transformation of businesses and that sort of thing. I think leadership during times of a transformation is quite different. Interestingly, at the moment I think we are sitting in a permanent moment of transformation just because of the speed of change around digital and social media. I’m not sure that we’ll ever go back to the kind of more traditional sort of pace.

In the early days of being a working mum I remember thinking, ‘it’s just too hard’…
I was on the launch team of Grazia when my twins were two years old and I remember being very stressed at the time. The fact I pushed through it made me impassioned about the idea that childcare needs to be more flexible. We really need to look after women reentering the workforce who don’t have jobs that can finish at 5pm.

I’m tired of hearing media stories about how hopeless the younger generation are…
I couldn’t disagree more. In my experience it’s the exact opposite. They’re the most tenacious and productive. The productivity in what we expect of them is a billion times what it was when I was in that position, so I think that probably needs to change just as a general conversation. We need to be a bit more appreciative of the talent.

I would encourage young writers and journalists to do a Creative MBA…
I sit on the University of Technology’s business advisory board and they’re working on a creative MBA and it’s something I would advise young people, not just in coming into media to write content, but potentially editing a magazine one day, that a degree like that would be invaluable. Editors now require business skills because the traditional job has evolved and changed and you’ve got more revenue streams now. It’s become a more complicated business to run.

And make sure you enter our Women in Media Awards, or nominate a colleague, here!

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