Former Condé Nast head Stephen Florio dies

Stephen Florio, who led U.S. publishing giant Condé Nast during years of spectacular growth, died late last week at the age of 58 after a heart attack, according to a story in MediaDaily News.

Among his other triumphs was the launch of Lucky magazine, which went from nowhere in 2001 to virtually establish the whole category of shopping magazines (LouLou magazine from Rogers Publishing is a clone of Lucky.) The magazine now has a circulation of more than 1.1 million and $160 million in annual revenues. Under his leadership, the revenues of Advance Publications Revenues at parent company Advance Publications, based largely on the Condé Nast portfolio, grew from $930 million (in 1993) to $2.4 billion (in 2004).

Florio excelled at coordinating ad sales so the same campaign could run across many different titles, maximizing incremental revenue.

Florio started out working for Esquire, then as publisher of GQ and president of The New Yorker in 1985. He remained president of Condé Nast until 2004 when he relinquished the posts because of heart problems.

Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, told WWD:

“Steve was very much an editor’s publisher. He realized that good journalism and good magazines produced good profits. Inasmuch as it seemed he could talk the birds out of the trees, I can only imagine his powers of persuasion as a publisher.”