“How were your expectations so off?” they said. “Either you mismanaged the business or can’t forecast. Both bad.”
The second half had looked weak for months, according to two people familiar with the business. Revenue leaders also set targets they knew were unrealistic to accommodate Anna Wintour, Condé’s global chief content officer, according to one of the people.
When publishers miss annual budgets, they can resort to layoffs to account for the difference. In recent years, Condé Nast has implemented staff reductions in November 2023, December 2024, and November 2025.
Vogue World, the experiential spectacle that moves to a new city each year, is also expected to come in well below last year. The 2025 Hollywood edition brought in just under $30 million, according to a person familiar with the event. This year’s edition, which took place last month in Milan, was pacing to bring in less than $20 million, according to people familiar with the business.
Some of that decline is about geography, said two people familiar with the strategy, since U.S. advertisers are reluctant to sponsor an event held abroad.
Condé Nast’s Carrig disputed that figure. “Vogue World Milan brought in $26 million,” she said, “and Vogue donated a record $3 million to the redevelopment of the Quarto Oggiaro Library as part of the event.”
A soft tentpole matters well beyond the event itself, according to one person familiar with the business, because flagship events help draw advertisers into larger media buys.
“You use the big-ticket events to drive the overall deals,” they said. “If you don’t have a hook, people aren’t coming to buy your media inventory.”
The challenges have been exacerbated by several key departures.
In May, Doug Grinspan, chief business officer for U.S. sales and global key accounts at Condé Nast, left the company. Former employees described his exit as a pivotal loss for Condé Nast, as Grinspan had managed relationships with several of its top advertisers. Since then, head of marketing Sophia Zhang has also left the company after less than a year.
Grinspan and Zhang did not respond to a request for comment.
The turnover in sales leadership has compounded the challenges facing the publisher, leaving it without a clear commercial strategy, according to four people familiar with the situation.
In a wry nod to this lack of direction, at a meeting this spring Lynch presented the company strategy as a series of blank slides, according to a person familiar with the presentation.
“Everyone who is a leader is gone,” said a person familiar with the strategy. “And everyone who is a leader by title right now is just counting down till their severance comes up.”
Talking Heds
Morse’s Coda: Last November, I sat down with Andrew Morse, then the CEO of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as he walked me through his ambitious plan, financed with a $100 million war chest, to turn the publisher into The New York Times of the South. But a few months later, in May, he left the outlet, citing the strain of an interstate commute, among other factors. On Wednesday, Morse revealed his next venture: Phareo, a platform that “helps creators find the audiences they deserve.” Although details around its specific aim are scant, the focus of the startup suggests that Morse came to understand, perhaps even while at the AJC, that creators, rather than legacy news outlets, are the future of the space. The bet is an informed one, but Phareo enters a densely populated creator ecosystem, so it will be interesting to see how it hopes to stand out.
