Magazine publishers are still adapting to a world in which they no longer dominate lifestyle content. Large audiences for shopping discovery, how-to instructional content, relationships and inspiration have been snaffled by podcasts, newsletters, online video, social media and events. Once dominant magazines now compete with “creators” in the low-cost/ easy-access world of personalized, multi-channel media – and new business models.
That’s the context for our selection of 40 of the most distinctive movers and shakers (new and old) in Lifestyle Media. This inevitably individual selection includes many of the (still) larger legacy players but also highlights the “new” leaders and companies which are changing everything, principally through the ‘golden triangle’ of newsletters, podcasts and events.
Welcome to The Flashes & Flames Lifestyle Media 40.
1.Neil Vogel, CEO, People Inc, is the former investment banker whose Dotdash became an all-digital, magazine-succession rising star of Barry Diller’s then IAC. It all looked so good until 2021 when they acquired the magazine behemoth Meredith Corp for an eye-watering $2.7bn to create the largest digital and print publisher in the US. Vogel, ultimately, owned up to the bad timing and took time to adjust to ownership of People, the country’s largest magazine, arguably, the “browsing media” he had previously dismissed. Whether the company, now called People Inc, had once hoped to sell-on the former Time Inc flagship, Vogel has made it the powerful core of a 200mn substantially first-party audience for advertisers. It has largely replaced the platform traffic guillotined by Google and is now driven by Vogel’s proprietary D/Cipher Intent Targeting tool. Although People Inc still publishes some 15 print magazines (of its 40 brands) and hundreds of bookazines, almost 70% of its revenue now comes from digital. The $1.2bn-revenue listed company is now pushing strongly into events with a portfolio of more than 60 for 2026, including this week’s acquisition of the Hot Luck music and food festival in Austin, Texas. Vogel’s diversification strategy includes applying its major brands to a raft of new wholly-owned products and services, starting with Southern Living’s “Southern Tea”. A bold strategic twist for the publisher whose Better Homes & Gardens has long enjoyed lucrative low-risk licensing deals with retailers.
2. Mia Freedman, Founder, Mamamia, is the former editor-in-chief of the Australian edition of Cosmopolitan, who founded Mamamia as a feisty blog in Sydney in 2007. It has since morphed into the country’s leading pureplay podcast network and claims to be the world’s largest women’s portfolio, with 50 shows, 1.5mn listeners and 450k newsletter subscribers. The estimated cA$45mn-revenue, privately-owned company is picture-perfect “new” lifestyle media, having pivoted from blogging to podcasts and now into on-demand video. It has upstaged many of the magazines that Freedman herself once managed for the Aussie company which, pro rata, had been the world’s most successful women’s publisher. Mamamia podcasts, newsletters and events now claim to reach 7.5mn Aussie women every month (almost 90% of the country’s 16–64-year-old women) and 2mn men. Flagship shows like Australia’s biggest podcast Mamamia Out Loud (1.1mn listeners and 2.5mn downloads in May), No Filter (hosted by Freedman), and The Quicky frequently dominate the podcast charts. Mamamia’s hard-hitting journalism, pop culture and personal essays give women a voice and political influence that Australia recognizes.
3. Gary Lineker, co-founder, and Jack Davenport, CEO, Goalhanger Podcasts. Davenport is a former BBC television producer and Lineker is the former England international footballer and TV presenter, whose eight-year-old company netted an estimated £45mn revenue in 2025. They produce many of the UK’s most popular podcasts, including The Rest is Politics, The Rest is History and more than 10 other brands including entertainment – and football, which is currently featured on Netflix for the FIFA World Cup in a deal said to be worth £14mn. Lineker says: “I think we started early, recognized that podcasting was going to be interesting, got a bit lucky and made some good choices…The business is performing staggeringly well.” The strength of the business (apart from Lineker himself attracting football audiences around the world) is The Rest is… branding, big name presenters, some 300,000 paying subscribers (averaging £60 a year), and a burgeoning portfolio of live events and newsletters. It is also growing in the US, where it has recently secured investment in a minority shareholding from The Chernin Company. Its largest podcast, The Rest is History, said to have a monthly worldwide audience of 20mn+. Goalhanger itself also invests in “creator-led media businesses”.
5. Joanne McNally and Vogue Williams, founders, “My Therapist Ghosted Me” are almost a symbol of the fusion of media and entertainment in the “new” lifestyle media. Their award-winning 15-30-minute episodes (with full video on YouTube) are a winning blend of comedy and the airing of presenters’ and listeners’ problems and anxieties. It’s an incredibly popular five-year-old, weekly podcast by Irish comedian McNally and television presenter Williams. It frequently tops streaming charts and sells out live shows globally. The brand originated from a real-life incident where McNally’s therapist really did stop answering her phone calls. Instead of finding a new professional, McNally and her long-time friend Vogue Williams decided their friendship could essentially replace the therapist. The show features them “candidly, and often humorously, sharing their experiences with the ups and downs of life, relationships, and modern dilemmas”. They claim at least 3-4mn global listeners monthly and have performed sold-out live podcast tours in the UK, Australia, the US and Ireland. Total revenue is said to be at least €10mn, although this might be an under-estimate to judge by the €2.4mn ticket sales generated at just five Dublin shows.
7. Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, CEO, Her Campus Media with Annie Wang (CCO), and Windsor Western (president), co-founded the company in 2009 as Harvard undergraduates. It was an online publication by students for students. When they changed it into a broad digital service with fresh weekly and daily content, it was an instant hit and also attracted readers at other US universities. They decided to go it alone and (before graduating) launched the startup to give all US college women practical advice and inspiration on style, health, love, college living, and careers. That was the start of Her Campus. They won a Harvard startup competition which gave them $50k and a free office for a year in Boston. That – and $500 borrowed from a founder’s father (and repaid two weeks later) – was their only funding, and they’ve been profitable ever since. HCM is part newsletter publisher, part marketing agency, with a portfolio of events and a team of 90 and volunteer-led chapters at colleges across the US. The pandemic was a game changer: “The biggest change was our pivot to virtual events, the first of which was ‘I’m Still Graduating’, a mega, epic virtual graduation for the class of 2020 with major celebrity speakers that over 1mn people tuned into.” In 2024, a majority shareholding in HCM was acquired by George Soros Funds for what was believed to be an enterprise value of $150-200mn (estimated at 10-12x EBITDA).
8. Kevin Ma, founder, Hypebeast started a blog in 2005, writing about his sneaker obsession while working a day job in banking. The side hustle about fashion, music and street culture gradually became Hypebeast. Ten years later, in 2015, the company (named after ‘sneakerheads’ who obsessively wear hyped-up streetwear products) IPOd in Hong Kong, when he said: “The content has changed from being sneaker centric to more fashion geared.” Today, the $70mn-revenue company is “a leading global platform for contemporary culture and lifestyle, and a premier destination for editorially-driven news and commerce”. The group comprises: online content and social media (65% of revenue); a creative agency; and eCommerce featuring hundreds of global brands, including own brand products. Its global readership spans 80+ markets across Asia, Europe, and the US, and more than 40mn social media followers and editions in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian. It has a retail store in Hong Kong and operates a stylish print magazine and a range of events. Hypebeast has been named as one of Time magazine’s “50 best websites”, one of Fast Company’s “most innovative companies” and on Forbes Asia’s “Best under a Billion” list.
9. Gwyneth Paltrow, founder, GOOP, a wellness and lifestyle media and retail brand. It was founded in 2009 by the American actor as a weekly e-mail newsletter which later expanded into eCommerce, collaborating with fashion brands, hosting popup shows, organizing a “wellness summit”, podcasts, a (now closed print magazine with Conde Nast) and a documentary series on Netflix (“The Goop Lab”).The actor’s idea was “to share the things she was genuinely loving with her friends”. What began as a weekly email has since grown into a cultural force. with fearless curiosity and impeccable taste. She’s built Goop into a world “where women can explore the best in beauty, style, wellness, and personal evolution—style, substance and zero shame”. It claims to be “a pioneer in content and beauty and fashion—being that go-to place for women who trust that we do the work and research to surface and make the best of the best”. It is said to have had revenue in 2025 of $62mn, powered by eCommerce and stores selling branded and own brand products. Paltrow is said to retain a 30% shareholding in a company that has raised a total of $140mn from venture capital.
10. Roger Lynch, CEO, Conde Nast. The former banker and digital executive, has, in seven years, revamped the c$2bn, family-owned magazines group. His turnround plan involved replacing the dozens of fiercely independent national versions of the firm’s magazines, including its flagship Vogue, with global editions. Senior editors (mostly in New York) now commission content to attract readers globally. Reporting on 2025, described as the company’s fourth consecutive year of profit (after decades of losses), Lynch said: “Across the portfolio, our broader momentum came from the phenomenal work of our revenue teams – subscription revenue (+10%, with digital subs revenue growing an impressive 29%); tentpole events like Vogue World, GQ’s Men of the Year, The New Yorker Festival, the Met Gala, Allure Best of Beauty, the Vanity Fair Oscar Party (+40%); commerce (+13%); and branded content (+9%).” The company, whose major profit makers are Vogue, New Yorker and Vanity Fair, is now said to generate some 40% of its revenue each from print and digital and 20% (and growing fast) from events. But overall revenue is thought to have been flat at best in recent years.
11. James Murdoch, owner, Vox Media. His Lupa Systems acquired New York magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network for $300mn last month. The former News Corp and Fox executive who left the Murdoch family-controlled media companies for “content” reasons, indicates his ambition to build a group based on quality, reader-funded content and events. The Vox portfolio of 50 podcast shows had been the best growth business in Vox, reaching a claimed 58% of Americans each month, including two-thirds of all 18-54 year olds. The most profitable brand is The Pivot, by Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. Murdoch’s other media investments have included: The Bulwark (politics), Art Basel, and the Tribeca Film Festival.
12. Debi Chirichella, President, Hearst Magazines, (ex Conde Nast Digital) was appointed in 2020 and is responsible for reinventing the division which for decades powered the $13.5bn-revenue family-owned corporation which now primarily depends, instead, on B2B information and television. It is estimated to generate some $1.5bn from magazines, while B2B accounts for 60% of total Hearst profit. With powerhouse brands like Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and Elle, the company is clearly still wrestling with the challenge of a business, maybe 40% of whose revenue still comes from print magazines in the US, UK and around the world. But the launch of the Delish app (which, in less than 12 months, claims to have amassed 500,000 regular users) and the Car and Driver Marketplace, shows the strategic direction of the company whose AURA AI-powered targeting platform now generates one-third of its advertising using first-party data.
13. Nick Shelton, founder, Broadsheet is temporarily living in London, just four years after the 58-year-old Time Out magazine stopped printing its original London edition. The Australian publisher, whom it had inspired to launch a digital-print magazine in Melbourne, is now seeking to fill the gap in London. The journalistically stylish 16-year-old Broadsheet – which claims a regular audience of more than 1mn for its digital and print editions throughout Australia and New Zealand – self-describes as “one of Australia’s most influential independent publishers and award-winning media brands. In addition to our website, we reach millions of readers through social media, print papers, videos, cookbooks and events. Our goal is to connect our audience with the very best our cities have to offer, from food and drink to art and design to entertainment and travel”. It had been founded in 2009 and bootstrapped by Nick Shelton (still 100% owner) and now has an estimated revenue of A$20mn. Within a few months of his 2025 self-funded launch in London, Broadsheet claimed 100,000 monthly uniques, a local team of 10 and a marginal cost base of some £750k which might imply a breakeven (after c£500k of development cost) in Year 2. It’s also publishing a quarterly print magazine and is planning its first London events this summer.
14. Conal Byrne, CEO, iHeart Media Podcasting, heads the largest podcast publisher globally (with annual revenue of $600mn+), the industry-leading iHeartRadio digital service; the company’s digital sites, services, newsletters and programs; and its digital advertising technology companies, including Jelli, RadioJar, Unified, Voxnest and the recently-announced Triton Digital acquisition. Top podcast titles include: The Breakfast Club, Stuff You Should Know, Crime Junkie, and Las Culturistas. Newsletter subscribers receive a mix of top stories, trending show updates, pop culture news, and featured podcast highlights delivered to their inbox. Podcast revenue in 2025 was 26% up on the previous year. Prior to joining iHeartMedia, Byrne was president and CEO of Stuff Media, Inc, home of the HowStuffWorks (HSW), a podcast pioneer with leading shows including Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff You Should Know. He had joined the $3.9bn-revenue iHeartMedia when it acquired Stuff Media in 2018.
15. Jason & Colleen Wachob, founder-CEOs , Mindbodygreen, have built a leading independent brand dedicated to wellness which reaches an estimated 10 million people globally every month through written content, podcasts, events, and video classes (“Read, Learn, Listen, Shop”). The 17-year-old company’s 360-degree approach to mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and environmental well-being includes: media, education, podcasts, newsletters – and eCommerce including own brand products. The company – which has raised under $5mn from venture capital – is said to have transformed from “an accidental media brand”, dependent on page traffic and advertising, to “a direct-to-consumer retail engine.” It claims to have 10mn monthly uniques. The flagship Mindbodygreen Podcast: is believed to have 100,000 regular monthly listeners. MBG is estimated to have revenue of $30-40mn and employs some 120 people.
17. Bryan Goldberg, founder, BDG (formerly Bustle Digital Group), was a co-founder of sports digital Bleacher Report, sold to Time Warner in 2012 for $200mn. The portfolio of consumer brands includes: Bustle, NYLON, W magazine, Elite Daily and Inverse. He has raised some $145mn of venture capital for acquisitions but is believed to have retained a majority shareholding. BDG claims 84mn uniques monthly and is believed to have diversified revenue of $140mn with social media campaigns (30%), branded content (30%) and live events and sponsorships (20%). It is strongly growing revenue from these “tentpole experiential franchises”, premium, invitation-only activations built adjacent to “major global cultural moments” including the Oscars, Grammys, Coachella, and Art Basel. It claims 5mn email “subscribers”.
18. Kevin Li Ying, CEO, Future Plc and former CTO, was appointed 18 months ago. He had headed all Future’s B2C media, having been with the listed magazine-digital company for his entire 25-year career, having joined as a programmer when Future acquired his employer in 2000. He had thrived under the expansive strategies of former CEO Zillah Byng-Thorne. Not unlike the task of Future’s larger transatlantic counterpart People Inc, Li Ying must restore the company’s growth after the slowdown in platform traffic, digital advertising and eCommerce – and tilt it more strongly from print to digital. Last year’s financials showed that print revenues (33% of the total, or the majority if you exclude the GoCompare price comparison site) were actually the best performer and that digital and also the small B2B publishing was the worst. The current enterprise value is just £650mn (a forward pe of just 3x).
19. Tyler Brûlé, founder-chair, Monocle, launched the magazine in 2007 to provide “a briefing on global affairs, business, culture, design and much more”. It claims a monthly circulation of 80k and a readership of 168,000, 63% of whom listen either daily or weekly to Monocle 24 online radio, which itself has 1m monthly listeners. Its digital newsletters claim around 92,000 subscribers. It has retail outlets selling own-brand product and recommended merchandise in the US, UK, Japan and Canada and it operates conferences and subscriber events around the world. The magazine is an amazing, jam-packed mix of well-written insights and information about cities, travel and culture, wrapped in lists of cool places and stuff-to-share. It’s written for a mobile global audience interested in discovering best practice and people, and benchmarking success in everything from city governance to simple architecture. Its accounts show revenue of £21mn in 2024 -50% up in the past five years. The chunky print magazine is integral to the Monocle identity and subscriber experience but the brand has also been a real pioneer in podcasts (since 2011), newsletters and subscriber events.
20. Jan Wachtel, CEO, Burda, heads the €1.3bn media division of the €2.7bn-revenue, family-owned Hubert Burda which operates more than 500 media brands in Germany and 17 other countries, including the £200mn-revenue Immediate Media, in the UK. Although it invests heavily in digital, including through its equity division, Burda publishes more than 400 magazine brands globally. Wachtel was appointed last year after three years as president (publishing) of Bauer. Previously, he had been a managing director at Axel Springer’s Bild group and at RTL.
21. Jefferson Hack, founder, Dazed (formerly Dazed & Confused) launched the UK-based bi-monthly fashion and culture magazine in 1991, targeting “a global, youth‑leaning creative audience, with a strong orientation toward avant‑garde fashion, music, and art”. The £21mn-revenue (principally in Europe and the US) Dazed Media employs 100 people across the magazine, digital, events and membership. It self-describes as “the world’s leading independent media group” focused on fashion and culture, known for “pioneering self-expression and boundary-pushing creativity.”
22. Dave Portnoy, founder, Barstool Sports, grew the company from a free Boston, US-based newspaper in 2004 into a digital business sold for c$550mn in 2020. It was based on spikey sports commentary, pop culture, podcasts, blogs and vox pop videos. Following the rebranding of Barstool Sports Sportsbook into ESPN Bet, he re-acquired the company for $1 in 2023. The site, which once had revenue of $200mn, features One Bite Pizza Reviews: A daily video series where Portnoy travels to different pizzerias, critiques the slice, and assigns a rating. It claims 70mn monthly uniques and 200mn followers across all networks.
23. Alexander ‘Solly’ Solomou CEO-founder, LADbible, started the Manchester, UK-based youth publisher (now LBG Media) while at university in 2012. It expanded globally, taking iconic digital brands (like LADbible, SPORTbible, and UNILAD) to a 2021 IPO. It self-describes as “the global leader in youth publishing” and has grown in the US, including the £20mn acquisition of Betches Media. The £90mn-revenue company, which has an enterprise value of £46mn, claims a global audience of 509mn. This week, LBG paid £27mn (9x EBITDA) to acquire Uncovered, a social-first creative agency. Founder Solomou retains a 42% shareholding.
24. David Fischer, founder, Highsnobiety. It’s a fashion publication which started as a streetwear blog launched in 2005. With 9mn monthly uniques, it produces daily curated content on music, the arts, fashion and culture and a quarterly print magazine. Its core demographic is described as “highly affluent, educated, and style-conscious Gen Z and millennial consumers (aged 18–34).” Some 50% of its estimated $65mn revenue comes from eCommerce.
25. Stephen Colvin, CEO, Trusted Media Brands was appointed in 2025, having previously been an executive with Bloomberg Media , Newsweek, CBS Interactive and Dennis Publishing. TMB (the former Readers’ Digest company) serves 250 million consumers worldwide across streaming TV, social media, web and print. Its portfolio includes: FailArmy, Family Handyman, People Are Awesome, Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home, The Healthy, and The Pet Collective. TMB has estimated revenue of $250mn.
26. Justine Roberts, founder, Mumsnet, in 2000 had quit her career in investment banking, in order to enjoy a new career as a freelance sports reporter. But the catalyst for her unlikely digital startup was a holiday from hell, her first with one-year-old twin daughters. Everything about the family’s choice of luggage, flights, hotel and resort seemed wrong: “As new parents, we knew nothing and ended up choosing the wrong destination, with a terribly long flight. We were sitting around the pool, with other families, all moaning, saying, ‘if only we had known’. “The UK-based Mumsnet, helping mothers to tap into the wisdom of other parents, is now a highly influential platform with 9.5mn posts and 1.5mn page views annually and £9.5mn revenue.
27. Yvonne Bauer, CEO, Bauer Media Group, is still the largest magazine group in Europe (and perhaps in the world) by number of brands (200). But the 150-year-old, Hamburg-based company (with the majority of its business outside Germany) now generates more than 75% of revenue from its pan-European leadership of commercial radio/ audio and its newly-acquired out-of-home digital advertising. Last month’s decision to disband the magazines’ digital arm looks like an inevitable move to maximize magazine profit, while investing in Bauer’s growth businesses.
28. Michelle Kennedy, founder, Peanut. It’s nine-year-old VC-backed, UK-based social networking app for women navigating fertility, pregnancy, motherhood and menopause: “Created for (and by) women, Peanut is a safe space to meet women nearby and have conversations across meaningful topics from sex and feminine health to IVF, pregnancy, first years, midlife and beyond. Its regular audience is over 3.5mn women (70% in the US, 29% in UK). Kennedy (a former lawyer and digital executive) has so far raised some $22mn. It has been recommended by the Times of London, Vogue, The New York Times and Fortune.
29. Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis. The New York-based $800mn-revenue company owns tech media and gaming sites, e-commerce and software services in health, martech and cybersecurity. It had been formed as a specpub almost 70 years ago but was hugely expanded by Bill Ziff, son of a co-founder, who (in the 1980s) took the company into computer-related magazines, websites and TV. Its best-known brands included PC Magazine, and ZDNet. PC Magazine’s first issue (in 1982) featured an exclusive interview with the then little-known Bill Gates. That was the start of what became an internet information company. In 2010, two years after it had filed for bankruptcy, Shah acquired ZD with private equity backing. In 2012, it was acquired for $175mn (3 x revenue) by J2 Global which subsequently spun-off its cloud services business and reverted to the name Ziff Davis Inc, listed on Nasdaq. Since 2013, it has spent some $3.3bn on 97 acquisitions including: IGN Entertainment, TechBargains, Mashable, RetailMeNot and CNET. It currently has an enterprise value of $2bn.
30. Richelieu Dennis, founder, of Sundial Media. It includes Essence magazine and events, Refinery29 (acquired from Vice in 2024) and AfroPunk & BeautyCon digital sites and festival. The group is believed to have revenue of more than $450mn.
31. Ric Elias, co-founder/ CEO, Red Ventures, owns brands like The Points Guy, Bankrate and Lonely Planet. He started it in 2000 by buying up specialized websites. It acquired personal finance site Bankrate for $1.4bn in 2017 and paid $500mn for CNET in 2020 (which it sold to Ziff Davis in 2024 for a reported $100mn). The New York Times described the $2bn Red Ventures as “the biggest digital media company you’ve never heard of”. Elias was a survivor of the crash-landing of US Airways Flight 1549, known as the “Miracle on the Hudson”, the aircraft that made an emergency landing on New York’s river in 2009. The incident was immortalized in the Tom Hanks’ movie “Sully”.
32. Javier Junco, president, Grupo Hola, has some $125mn of global revenue and employs 400 people in Spain (60%), UK (30%), and US/ Mexico (10%). There are 21 editions of Hola! and Hello! in eight languages and more than 120 countries, with a global print circulation of over 3mn. Six editions are wholly-owned, the rest published under licence. Five are weekly magazines, three fortnightly and the rest monthly. The largest revenue is from the weeklies in Spain, UK, Canada, Argentina and Thailand. Hola! in Spain has a weekly circulation of 225k copies and 9mn digital uniques. In the UK, Hello has a circulation of 150k weekly – some 50% down in 10 years. The gobal digital audience is claimed to be some 45mn (25mn through Hello and 20mn through Hola). The unique twin brands are among the world’s most successful print and digital magazines.
33. Andrew Perlman, founder-CEO, Recurrent Ventures, co-founded the private equity-backed company in 2018 with the acquisition of The Drive. He oversaw the acquisition of more than 20 brands, including Task & Purpose, Popular Science, Dwell, and Donut and, in the process, introduced Recurrent as the new parent company for the digital media portfolio. In 2022, he rejoined the company and assumed the role of CEO.
34. Roger Thurston, founder, Outside Interactive. It’s a privately held outdoor‑lifestyle media and services platform that has rolled up a portfolio of magazines, digital brands, apps and booking tools around outdoor sport, fitness and adventure. It self-describes as the “world’s leading creator of active lifestyle content and experiences,” across digital, print, podcasts, social, video, TV, apps and events. The audience is estimated to be 70-80mn, with revenue of $125mn in 2025, the year when it returned to priofit.
35. Tobi Oredein, CEO- co-founder, Black Ballad. It’s an online media brand for black women in the UK which aims “to help every black woman realize how she can change her world through every click she makes and every conversation she has. We tell stories, host events and create experiences for, by and about black women that they can’t and won’t get anywhere else. From our articles and podcasts, to our thriving membership and community, BB exists to do one thing – help black women in Britain and beyond live their best lives.” It was launched in 2014 “from a place of passionate frustration” and is rapidly developing its events portfolio, notably The Black Ballad Weekender, a two-day lifestyle festival, which may now account for 50% of the estimated £1mn revenue.
36. Ben Clymer, founder-CEO, Hodinkee, launched as a specialist watch blog in 2008. It evolved into “a multi-channel destination for watch enthusiasts, offering print, digital, video content, and insurance”. In 2024, it was acquired for £11mn by the UK‑listed Watches of Switzerland Group which retained Clymer as “president and primary decision‑maker” It is believed that the site has 15mn ‘active users’ and revenue of c$120mn, mostly from Ecommerce.
37. Alaina Kaczmarski, founder, The Everygirl, whose Chicago-based digital media is a privately‑owned, 17-year-old online media brand reaching millions of millennial and Gen‑Z women each month through content on career, money, style, home, wellness, and family life. It (and the sister Everymom brand) is positioned as a relatable, service‑oriented resource: career profiles, personal essays, how‑to guides, and practical advice intended to help women build “well‑rounded, financially sound, stylish” lives. It is estimated to have 2-3mn monthly uniques and revenue of some $10mn.
38. Paul Edmondson, CEO, The Arena Group, joined after the acquisition of his own HubPages and, in 2025, became the fourth CEO in three years. The listed publisher (which is controlled by a single investor) has more than 250 brands, including: TheStreet (finance), Parade and Men’s Journal (lifestyle/men’s), and The Adventure Network and Athlon Sports (sports), reaching 100m users monthly. Its 2025 results were $134.8mn revenue (2024: $125.9mn) and $51.5mn EBITDA ($27mn)
39. Morgan DeBaun, founder-CEO of Blavity Inc, the 12-year-old US venture‑backed digital media and events company focused on Black culture, with a claimed 100mn monthly uniques. She bootstrapped a newsletter and became “the leading digital media company for Black culture and millennials/Gen Z,” with a portfolio including Blavity News, AfroTech, 21Ninety, Travel Noire, Shadow & Act, Home & Texture and Blavity TV.” It is believed to have $30-50mn revenue and to have fund-raised almost $10mn. DeBaun has pushed into events and “future of work” themes through AfroTech (a large tech and innovation conference) and other summits.
40. John Bird, founder, The Big Issue. Now for something quite different. Bird created the UK-based social enterprise and street magazine, The Big Issue, in 1991 to provide a “hand up, not a handout” to people who are homeless. The startup was funded by the owners of The Body Shop. It is believed to have revenue of c£6mn and 74 employees. UK street vendors buy each copy for £2.50 and sell it for £5, keeping the ‘profit’, while The Big Issue invests its £2.50 share in journalism, production and distribution. More than 100 street papers now operate in 40+ countries through the International Network of Street Papers, many inspired by (or connected to) The Big Issue, but not necessarily using the brand.
