Hearst Alum Kate Kelly Smith Joins Sandow | People on the Move
David Longobardi joins CyberRisk Alliance, Condé taps a chief product officer, hires at Skift, TIME and more.

Shelter magazines veteran Kate Kelly Smith has been appointed executive VP and managing director of Luxe Interiors + Design and chief sales officer for parent company Sandow’s design media brands.

The appointment comes about a year after Smith’s departure from Hearst Magazines’ Design Group amid a restructuring in early 2019. Smith had served as SVP and publishing director for the group—which includes House Beautiful, Veranda and Elle Décor—since 2012, and prior to that she had served as VP and publisher of House Beautiful since 2006.

“Kate is an inspiring leader and has the skills, vision and experience to further expand the brand and continue the success of the unique platform we have built over the past 15 years,” said Adam Sandow in a statement.

Additionally, Sandow announced that Luxe chief revenue officer Katie Brockman has been promoted to VP, corporate sales across the company. Also a Hearst Design Group alum, Brockman was associate publisher of Veranda for seven years before joining Sandow in 2017.

Here are the rest of this week’s people on the move…

Condé Nast has appointed Sanjay Bhakta to the newly developed role of chief product and technology officer. In the role, Condé says Bhakta will oversee the origination and implementation of direct-to-consumer products and services for its global portfolio. Bhakta previously served as SVP of global platform and product engineering at Pearson, and before that was VP of media software engineering at HBO. In both roles, Condé noted, he oversaw the deployment of services and content on an international scale.

David Longobardi has joined CyberRisk Alliance as chief content officer. CyberRisk Alliance, founded by CEO Doug Manoni last year, subsequently acquired SC Media and the InfoSec World Conference, among other properties. Longobardi was most recently at SourceMedia, where he also served as chief content officer and reported to Manoni, who was CEO of that company up until 2018. Prior to his move to the executive level, Longobardi was editor-in-chief of the company’s flagship brand, American Banker for nine years.

Bangkok-based editor and reporter Xinyi Liang-Pholsena has joined Skift as its Asia editor. Liang-Pholsena comes from TTG Asia Media, where she spent nearly 8 years, most recently as editor. Prior to TTG, she served as an assistant editor at Travel & Leisure Southeast Asia. At Skift, she succeeds Raini Hamdi, who is transitioning to editor-at-large.

Time announced three more new hires, two of which will work on developing advertising and marketing partnerships:

Sarah Fliss joins the venture partnerships team as an account executive, based in New York. Arriving from The New York Times, where she worked in advertising sales, Fliss also brings digital account management experience from The Hartford Courant. Stepping on as director, partnerships in the Texas region is Kara Wardley. Wardley’s prior experience includes roles as account manager at Bloomberg L.P. and Wired.

Meanwhile, the legal team adds Sara Loubriel as associate general counsel. Loubriel also arrives from HBO, and will be based in New York.

At Hearst Magazines, Marie Claire features director Kayla Webley Adler is shifting over to Elle as deputy editor. Webley Adler was previously senior editor at Marie Claire for six years before being promoted last July. Before joining Hearst, she served as a staff writer and reporter for Time.

Jim Rutenberg, media columnist at The New York Times, is shifting to a new writer-at-large role, working for both the paper’s politics desk and the Sunday New York Times Magazine on investigations, long-form stories and profiles, according to a memo.

Future plc has promoted Sherri Smith to editor-in-chief of LaptopMag.com. Smith, a tech writer and gamer, has provided product reviews for the site since 2011; she’s also contributed to Purch as an editor and staff writer following its acquisition by Future plc in 2018.

Local news entity Vicksburg Newsmedia, based in Vicksburg, Miss., has named Terri Cowart Frazier editor of Vicksburg Living, a bimonthly magazine and sister title to the Vicksburg Post. She will continue to write for the newspaper while running editorial for the magazine.