Kathy Lee Named Editorial Director Of The Zoe Report

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Bustle Digital Group’s lifestyle arm editor in chief Emma Rosenblum has made another hire from Hearst.

Rosenblum, who was previously executive editor of Hearst-owned Elle magazine before joining BDG, has hired Kathy Lee for the editorial director role at The Zoe Report. She will start her new position on Aug. 24 and takes the reins from site director Lauren Caruso, who departed earlier this year.

Most recently, Lee was the accessories director at Hearst Fashion Group, which oversees fashion content for the publisher’s brands including Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar. Prior to that she led the accessory and jewelry department for Cosmopolitan under editor in chief Joanna Coles.

Lee is the latest hire from Hearst Tower, following Tiffany Reid, fashion director of BDG’s lifestyle group (see it here), and Katherine Stoeffel, the group’s new features director, through the door. Bustle’s executive editor Christina Amoroso also came from Hearst.

“Over the past year we’ve been working toward a big redesign of the site, which we’re about to undergo,” Rosenblum said. “So going into this redesign and also this new era of the world and of fashion, we really wanted to think about what we’re doing with this brand and in order to do that we felt the best decision was to bring in new leadership.”

As far as the future of The Zoe Report, which BDG acquired in 2018 from celebrity stylist and entrepreneur Rachel Zoe and her husband and business partner Rodger Berman, Lee’s top priority for the site is to “expand its outlook and coverage to fully reflect and celebrate our colorful mosaic of society.” She also wants to boost wellness and lifestyle coverage.

“I think that’s something a lot of people have an appetite for right now, especially since we are more at home and more conscious of the way that we live,” she continued.

Rosenblum added that the coronavirus hasn’t had much of an impact on revenues for The Zoe Report, which she described as a “nice surprise,” although BDG did not provide updated numbers. “Our traffic has been steady. Our revenue has actually been good,” she said.

It did, however, scupper plans to create more live events around The Zoe Report. Instead, like most other media outlets, the focus for now is virtual. These offerings include a Style Inside social event with Zoe herself, a Self-Care Saturday wellness event, and the brand’s annual holiday event, Let It Zoe.

Zoe, who has shares in BDG as part of the deal, has not completely disappeared from the site. She’s editor at large and occasionally “sprinkles her magic on the site,” according to Rosenblum.

Photos Credit: Courtesy of Kathy Lee