Magazines News South Africa

Strategic editorial appointments at New Media

New Media (NMP) has made various strategic changes to its décor hub through various promotions and new appointments to the editorial team. The hub currently includes consumer title Visi and customer titles Plascon Colour and Woolworths World.

Sumien Brink, editor of Visi, Woolworths Taste and Plascon Colour magazines, has been promoted to the position of editorial director of these three titles, also adding ‘magalogue' Woolworths World to her portfolio. She will remain the editor of Taste and managing editor Johan van Zyl will assume the editorship of Visi.

Award-winning Liezel Norval-Kruger will edit Plascon Colour on a freelance basis and Anneke Sloman has joined NMP as editor of Woolworths World.

Comments Irna van Zyl, executive director of New Media, “Sumien's promotion to editorial director and the appointments of Johan, Liezel and Anneke as editors will greatly enhance the skills in the décor and lifestyle sector. Through this new structure, we believe we will continue to deliver outstanding magazines for all our clients and readers.”

In 2007, Brink became the first editor to receive the MPASA PICA Award for Editor of the Year in both the consumer and customer magazine categories. She first made her mark as fashion editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, where she later edited the Fashion Directory before becoming the founding editor of House & Leisure for eight years. She then joined Visi in 2001.

Van Zyl spent six years at Die Burger, where he worked on the paper's Lifestyle section and started the Oop Kaarte profile column. He then moved to the launch team on Home/Tuis as chief copy editor, before joining NMP in 2007 as managing editor on VISI.

Norval-Kruger is lifestyle editor of Elle and was deécor editor at Rooi Rose. She is also the author and publisher of numerous décor books which have been printed in several languages in countries around the world. Norval-Kruger's first edition of the magazine will be its 11th issue, which will be published in November 2008.

Sloman moves from Femina magazine, where she filled the roles of deputy editor and features editor. She has a total of 13 years of experience in the women's glossy magazines market in South Africa, having worked on a range of titles from Baby and Me to Fairlady, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire.

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