Well-known digital media exec Zander Lurie has been hired by former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn to become one of his key lieutenants at Guggenheim Digital Media.

Lurie will be an EVP there, where he will help manage and grow the new heavily funded digital unit of Guggenheim Partners, whose current media assets include Billboard, the Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, the Clio Awards, Film Expo Group and the digital extensions for Dick Clark Productions.

Lurie was most recently an exec at CBS, including as SVP of strategic development, where he worked on a number of key digital initiatives. He was CFO and head of business development for CBS Interactive and also worked on M&A at its CNET tech news unit. Lurie left the media giant in May.

“The opportunity to join Guggenheim Digital Media and work alongside Ross was a no-brainer,” wrote Lurie to me in an email. “We have high-quality, trusted brands in the portfolio and an appetite to grow our position in the premium content/video landscape.”

Expect more acquisitions now that the deal-making Lurie is joining the deal-making Levinsohn and there’s a pile of dough to spend.

Lurie is the first significant hire by Levinsohn, who became CEO of GDM last month. He had been interim CEO of Yahoo, but lost that job when the Silicon Valley Internet giant hired former Google exec Marissa Mayer.

Michel Protti, who worked with Levinsohn at Yahoo as his chief of staff, is also joining GDM as SVP. Before Yahoo, Protti worked at McKinsey & Company.

Guggenheim already controlled several media trade titles, including Billboard, Adweek and the Hollywood Reporter, so Guggenheim Digital Media will start out running those.

But Levinsohn, who first made his reputation as an M&A guy at News Corp. (which owns this website), will be writing checks for new stuff soon.

Guggenheim says it will be giving him “significant capital to acquire and invest in new media companies.” Fair to assume that he has a target list drafted.

Levinsohn was last seen at Yahoo, where he started out running the company’s U.S. operations, and ended up moving into the interim CEO job in the spring of 2012. He campaigned for the permanent job, but lost out to Marissa Mayer; in between, he tried positioning Yahoo as an entertainment hub.

Guggenheim Partners started out as a management firm for the Guggenheim (the same folks behind the iconic museums in New York and Spain) family fortune; it now says it manages more than $160 billion in assets.

This isn’t Levinsohn’s first interaction with the company; in the summer of 2011, it represented Hulu’s owners as they mulled a sale, and Levinsohn was keen on having Yahoo buy the video site.

Along with Levinsohn’s new appointment, Guggenheim says it has bought out the remaining stake in the Hollywood Reporter and its other trades, which had been owned by Jimmy Finkelstein’s Pluribus Capital.

That can’t be right, can it?

Not exactly. That scenario is what Gawker’s Scott Kidder encountered when he read a story on Adweek’s site today, but that’s not what’s supposed to happen.

Instead, Kidder should have had a choice of filling out a one- or two-question survey or sharing the story on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Bug, not a feature, says a Google spokesrep, via email:

Generally, Google Consumer Surveys are designed to show a market research question along with an alternate, publisher defined action, such as signing in or sharing a piece of content. Along with the surveys, we also offer a number of controls to prevent abuse of the system. Unfortunately, in rare cases, as a result of these controls, a prompt runs without a survey question included. This is not the intended behavior and we are currently working on a fix.

[UPDATE: This is now fixed, a Google rep says.]

Okay, fair enough. As far as the survey that AdWeek users are supposed to see, which acts as an ersatz pay wall by generating a small fee for AdWeek and Google every time someone fills it out: Annoying and a little clumsy, but not terrible.

I’ve read about the tool, and I’ve used it several times, but each time I encounter it I think something’s broken on the site. Then I remember what’s happening, make a couple of clicks without giving it a lick of thought — today’s survey was about professional medical supplies, I think, but I really have no idea — and move on.

Hard to see how this is useful for the survey sponsor, but I’ve always found online sponsor polls to be baffling. So perhaps it’s a less-bad option.

In any case, it’s a couple of clicks, so I’d prefer that to having Adweek crap up their site with slideshows, or forcing me to make lots of clicks to read a one-page story, which happens all over the Web these days. I also prefer it to Facebook’s “frictionless sharing” via “social readers,” which end up automatically belching up my friends’ reading habits into my feed, whether or not either of us wanted that to happen.

And in the big picture, unless the site you like is using the “borrow money from investors, pay back by selling to Facebook” plan, you’re always going to end up paying something to use it.

Either you pull out your credit card, or you lend them your eyeballs so they can rent them out to advertisers. And if you don’t like those options, you’re going to end up with a much emptier Web.

We need to ask how do we regulate the Internet? You can’t have a market without property rights. The idea that you’ll have no enforcement should be greeted with laughter. I’m not seeing any alternative come out.

— Robert Levine, author of “Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back,” in conversation with Katy Bachman of Adweek

The last one means Wolff is particularly in demand these days, which is why he showed up to the BBC’s satellite studio in New York today.

The Beeb had other (unintentional) plans. You must watch this clip:

As Sky News reminds us, this is not the first time the BBC has brought the wrong dude on camera. Here’s a clip of Guy Goma, who had shown up to a BBC studio for a job interview in 2006, and was instead put on air and asked about Apple.

(Not terribly necessary disclosure in this case: Both Sky News and this Web site are owned by News Corp., the company at the center of the scandal that prompted Wolff to go on air today.)

For the record, I like Gilbert Gottfried quite a bit, and he’s justly famous for his post-9/11 rendition of the Aristocrats. But hard to imagine that he resonates with Victory’s constituency, who listen to bands named Ringworm and Voodoo Glow Skulls.

(Via Brian Morrissey and AdWeek.)

It’s the news that this story should have run in the New York Post last week.

NYT reporter Tim Arango reports that Wolff is still feuding with News Corp., which owns the Post, as well as this site, over a 2008 Rupert Murdoch biography. The beef is serious enough, Arango says (he intimates, to be precise), that Post media ace Keith Kelly wasn’t able to publish a scoop about Wolff’s move:

Elsewhere in the tabloid’s pages, Mr. Wolff’s name is not so welcome. Last week Mr. Wolff spoke to Keith J. Kelly, the paper’s media columnist, about his new job, but no article was published.

Ouch. Arango himself is a veteran of the Post’s media desk, so he certainly knows the terrain here. But really? Doesn’t news trump all?

I asked Wolff about it, via e-mail. “You’ll have to ask Keith about that (and I would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation),” he writes.

Kelly, alas, also declined to comment, and passed me on to Post editor-in-chief Col Allan. I’ve yet to hear back from Allan, and I’ve asked News Corp. PR folks for comment as well, just for good measure. Happy to include their responses if I get them.

Funny you should ask. Nike will formally start pushing out its new ads tomorrow on TV, Facebook and Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. But the marketer gave the campaign a small push early this week, which is all it took. People are lapping this stuff up.

This three-minute spot, for instance, is on an “unlisted” YouTube page, which means it’s theoretically “private”–it won’t show up in YouTube search results or its homepage, and you can only get to it via a link (I got there via AdWeek’s Brian Morrissey). But it has already racked up some 400,000 views. That number will start getting really, really big tomorrow.

No idea who any of these people are? No worries. There’s a partial explication, via Nike press release, below.

The story starts when the viewer is drawn into the heat of battle on the pitch as a ball drops from the air into the path of Didier Drogba. As the world holds its collective breath, Drogba picks his way through sliding defenders and expertly chips the goalkeeper – wild celebrations commence across Africa. But they are curtailed at the last second as Fabio Cannavaro makes a stunning overhead goal line clearance. This game-changing moment propels Cannavaro to pop culture icon complete with television chat show appearances and a song dedicated to his moment of brilliance.

Other global football stars including Wayne Rooney experience how a moment on the pitch can last forever. In one scene, the England striker sees an intercepted pass picked up by midfielder Franck Ribery. The ensuing impact brings a nation to its knees and leaves us to imagine Rooney’s destroyed career and his life as a groundsman, living in a caravan, with Ribery’s image looming large above him on a giant billboard. Fast forward, and Rooney relives the moment, sprints after Ribery and wins the ball back. Personal and national pride restored, we see him receiving a knighthood, with headline-grabbing plaudits, a maternity room full of little Waynes and an effortless table-tennis defeat of Roger Federer. The Rooney ripple effect comes full circle.

Similarly, Cristiano Ronaldo is fouled in a game, and as he prepares to take a vital free-kick for Portugal, we flash forward to see the ripple effect if he scores; a stadium named in his honour and a Film Premiere for a movie of his life.

The Wired iPad app Condé Nast showed off this month looks great. But the chances that the publisher will give its other magazines the same treatment don’t look promising.

Condé is still creating a digital version of its tech magazine for the device. But the influential publisher says it won’t create similar iPad apps for other titles unless Apple and Adobe figure out how to work together.

Condé does plan to sell iPad-friendly versions of some of its other magazines. But they will be similar to the iPhone app the publisher has already created for its GQ title, and not the more ambitious stuff that Wired has been talking up since last fall.

In a memo the company plans to distribute internally tomorrow, Condé says it is trying two different approaches to the iPad (and tablets in general) as part of an “R&D period” that will run through October, while it figures out the best way to please readers, advertisers, etc.

But in a conversation I had with Chuck Townsend last week, Condé’s CEO was more blunt: He can’t fully embrace the Wired version, which was created with Adobe’s (ADBE) help and uses Adobe’s Flash platform, unless Apple (AAPL) embraces Flash.

Condé will have “two parallel development tracks going until the relationship between Apple and Adobe is clear,” he told me Friday.

But what about Adobe’s assurances that it’s no big deal to move the mag app it built for Wired, which is based on Flash, into a form Apple approves of? Not convincing enough, Townsend said.

I asked Townsend if he’d prefer to use the Wired model–which boasts features like integrated video, interactive ads, etc.–if Apple is okay with Flash. In that case, he said, “the answer would be an easy yes.”

Given that Apple has made its distaste for Flash a key part of the iPhone/iPod/iPad ecosystem, Condé is in a difficult position.

The magazine publisher has spent significant time and energy working with Adobe, and one of its flagship titles (“magazine of the decade,” per Adweek) has lined up behind the company. And it is indeed possible to move Flash apps to the iPhone, and presumably the iPad.

But content companies like Condé have convinced themselves that the iPad will be a huge part of their future. And this means they want Apple’s full cooperation, not just its grudging approval. For instance, there’s zero chance Apple will promote a Flash-based app in one of its ads.

The GQ app for the iPhone is pretty good, by the way, and I’m assuming it will work well on the iPad, too. But it’s a pretty straightforward transfer of the print version to digital form and lacks the bells and whistles that Wired and Adobe dreamed up.

Will anyone care? Let’s see. For now, here’s Condé’s official iPad app time table: A new version of the GQ app, tweaked to the iPad’s specs, should be available when the device launches at the end of March. After that, the company is planning similar apps for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour. The Wired app is scheduled to debut at the end of May.

And then, readers, advertisers, and everyone else can finally compare for themselves.

Evidently that’s as true today as it was 12 years ago, because Apple (AAPL) has won a bundle of AdWeek’s “Best of the Decade” awards. The advertising trade mag named Apple “Brand of the Decade,” its “Get a Mac” ads ”Campaign of the Decade,” its iPod “Product of the Decade,” its iPod silhouettes ads “Out-of-Home Ad of the Decade” and CEO Steve Jobs “Marketer of the Decade.”

“Though the brand almost petered out in the ’90s, last year consumers told Interbrand that Apple was the thing they couldn’t live without and the one they found most inspiring,” AdWeek explains. “Why? Perhaps it’s Apple’s vaguely antiauthoritarian stance (epitomized in its iconic ’1984′ ad). A true-in-practice focus on relentlessly improving its products also helps. But maybe it comes down to this: Most brands are run by committee, but this one is the embodiment of a living, breathing person. Steve Jobs is Apple in the way that Richard Branson is Virgin. Of course it helps when you’re a brilliant marketer who happens to be the CEO.”

Apple, it’s worth noting, also came close to winning “Digital Company of the Decade,” but was bested by Google (GOOG), which was named “Media Company of the Decade” as well.

“Verizon is displaying maps of the United States that purport to show each carrier’s ’3G’ coverage. The maps use color to depict the areas of the country in which each carrier has ’3G’ coverage and blank or white space in the areas of the country where ’3G’ coverage is not available. Consumers are interpreting the white or blank space on the maps to mean that AT&T customers who are not in an AT&T ’3G’ coverage area have no wireless coverage whatsoever, and therefore have no ability to use their wireless devices for any purposes in vast areas of the country. This interpretation is not surprising as Verizon, in its own coverage maps, uses white space to inform customers that no coverage of any kind exists. Contrary to the misleading message conveyed by Verizon’s advertisements, AT&T customers can fully use their wireless devices outside of a ’3G’ coverage area and undisputedly have coverage in areas depicted by the white or blank spaces on the maps used in Verizon’s advertisements.”

– Excerpt from AT&T’s complaint against Verizon

If AT&T’s lawsuit over Verizon’s allegedly misleading “there’s a map for that” wasn’t a public relations mistake to begin with, it will be by the time Verizon gets through with it. Responding to the suit today, Verizon (VZ) rep Jeffrey Nelson used it to stoke public perception that AT&T’s (T) network is inferior to Verizon’s.

“This is a junk lawsuit. It has no merit,” Nelson told Adweek. “It’s surprising that rather than defend the ‘blue’ hot spots on their 3G map, our competitor instead focuses on their white spaces. The maps clearly note that the comparisons are of 3G service, and further note that voice and data services are available in other places.”

Way to draw attention away from Verizon’s claim of a superior network coverage, AT&T.

The search giant will reportedly open up its AdX service, which is supposed to bring together ad buyers and sellers the same way a stock market does, within the next two weeks. ClickZ says the exchange is supposed to open in conjunction with next week’s AdWeek festivities in New York.

That timeline sounds right to me. Google (GOOG) has already been inviting selected clients to try out the system, which is based on the one DoubleClick ran before Google acquired the firm last year. Google told potential buyers via email that it will begin integrating their ads into the exchange this week.

None of this will have any impact on Google’s search users, but it’s potentially important for online advertisers and publishers.

Until now, the online exchange market has been dominated by Yahoo’s (YHOO) Right Media, but Google will become an instant rival as soon as it opens its doors. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s (MSFT) offering, AdECN, seems stuck in the starting gate.

Google’s exchange will open shortly after the departure of its manager, Michael Rubenstein, who is now president of ad tech start-up AppNexus.

My time-killing suggestion for the day: AdWeek’s “AdFreak” blog, which is packed with TV ads you probably haven’t seen. Did you know, for instance, that the Kool-Aid man was back?

Or perhaps you’ve wondered what a North Korean beer ad looks like (though honestly, you don’t need to go the full two-and-a-half minutes on this one; 20 seconds is fine):

Or maybe you want to see a guy doing a backflip in a wheelchair, as in this spot for Howstuffworks.com:

One word of warning: Don’t bother with the “Eat Canadian” ad, which is earnest and dull. Save that for Monday, as you’re easing into the week. Enjoy your weekend!

A U.S. recovery is likely to begin this autumn, the worst of the crisis has passed and it is “reasonable to be optimistic for 2010,” internet search giant Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt said on Friday.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in southern France, Schmidt said U.S. jobless claims indicated “the beginning of the bottom.” “The rate of jobless claims is decreasing although the absolute number is increasing,” he explained.

Schmidt also acknowledged that Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing search engine exists and that his company has looked at what Redmond has done, but refused to say the company was shaking in its boots. Seems reasonable enough.

I’ll add more from Schmidt’s appearance if I can find reports, but I’m not holding my breath. AdWeek’s Brian Morrisey, reporting from France via Twitter, says Schmidt gave even more restrained answers than he typically does at these things.

Super Bowl XLIII is nearly upon us, multimillion dollar ads in tow, and since there’s never been as much video, connectivity or interactivity as there is right now, the whole thing is shaping up to be quite the Web 2.0 extravaganza.

From YouTube to Twitter to Facebook and beyond, here’s your guide to all the digital venues available to view, vote on and even interact with in this year’s lineup of ad campaigns.

There is no shortage of sites on which to watch (and rewatch, again and again) the ads: NBC, the game’s official broadcaster, Spike, YouTube, and Hulu, to name just a few (see below for a list). Many of these sites have already aggregated a number of previews and will allow you to vote for your favorite commercials or rank them.

Speaking of Hulu, the video site has created a customizable Super Bowl ad widget that will allow you to display and vote on the ads and can be embedded into Web sites or blogs. The Hulu folks have also been spreading some talk about how they will “reveal the secret behind Hulu” during Super Bowl Sunday. Really, Hulu? We are sweating in anticipation (not).

Many of the companies whose ads will be featured during the game also have content on their corporate Web sites. Some–like the Orlando Sentinel–are playing coy, releasing only teaser clips about their actual ad–essentially creating a commercial about a commercial. It has something to do with a kid in a cape, accompanied by some very somber background piano music.

Others have already released full versions of their ads online. Internet domain company Go Daddy has put two titillating ads up on its site starring sexy race car driver Danica Patrick, fresh from her big debut last year. The company will also feature Internet-only ads with a more salacious spin on the made-for-TV ones.

Meanwhile, sites like Spotbowl and Superbowl-Ads have aggregated lots of information about the commercials. Spotbowl has collected industry rumors and reports and boasts a fairly detailed list of all of this year’s ad sponsors, noting the type of commercial(s) each will play and behind-the-scenes information on many of them.

Superbowl-Ads presents perhaps the most complete Web 2.0 package, which will not only feature the commercials online, but has established a Facebook and Twitter presence as well. Its Facebook site features much of the same content as the site, but also has a video viewer, news tracker apps and discussion board.

And you can even befriend the famous Etrade Baby, who will make another appearance this year. Find him on Twitter under “etradebaby,” although he hasn’t had much to say so far. At the time of this writing, his most recent, and rather cryptic, message was, “I have very little time or patience for clowns.”

You can also follow Superbowl-Ads on Twitter under “superbowlad,” or search #superads09 and #sb43ads for a constant stream of relevant links, information and chatter leading up to and going into the big game.

Meanwhile, Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang will be conducting a “TwitterBowl” experiment during the game whereby you can send in your votes to @superbowlads (with an “s” at the end), commenting on the ads and giving each a rating of up to five stars.

Even iTunes is in on the party this year, as you’ll be able to download original music from Pepsi’s SoBe Lifewater ad. Said commercial is one of the few that will be shown in 3-D, provided that you’ve picked up your new 3-D glasses, since the old red-and-blues won’t do the trick, apparently.

So digitally speaking, you’re all ready for the big game. That is, unless, you were looking for actual information about that big game, in which case you’d probably do better somewhere else.

Super Bowl ad watch sites:

NBC
Hulu
Spike
Superbowl-ads
Spotbowl
NFL
Fanhouse
Myspace
Youtube
Adweek

Kelly’s number for today “may be on the high side,” a person familiar with the matter counsels me. In any event, I expect to have more details later in the day. As always, I value your input, and I keep all correspondence anonymous: peter@allthingsd.com.

In the meantime, an update on this week’s cuts: I’m told Time Europe editor William Green and senior editor James Graff were laid off via phone yesterday, and that more cuts in the London office are expected today. And four-year-old Cottage Living magazine has been shut down, which means that 38 out of 47 people who worked on that title are out of work; the remainder will be placed elsewhere in the group. Announced along with the job cuts today were the departures of executives from Cooking Light and Southern Progress. Chris Allen, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Cooking Light is resigning his position, as are Southern Progress execs Bruce Akin, Karla Hardy and Dick Gardner. Here are the memos:

November 18, 2008

To:Time Inc. Employees
From:Sylvia Auton
Re: Cottage Living Magazine

I regret to inform you that we will no longer be producing Cottage Living magazine. The November/December 2008 issue, on newsstands now, will be the magazine’s last. Cottageliving.com will also shutdown. However, the company will keep the brand alive in one of its other leading shelter titles and these plans will be finalized over the next few weeks.

Since its inception, Cottage Living attracted significant advertiser support and fostered a loyal following among readers. However, the economic downturn has particularly affected the shelter market and while the brand was genuinely loved by readers and advertisers alike, the economy inhibited its ability to grow and therefore, sadly, we had to make the decision to close it.

Cottage Living launched with a unique editorial mission. Its readership celebrated community and character over conformity, personality rather than perfection, and informality instead of pretension. The brand’s tagline: ‘life just right,’ showed how one could ‘live large,’ even luxuriously, in a lighter footprint.

Launched in September 2004 with a circulation of 500,000, the brand quickly grew to 650,000 in January/February 2005. One year later, Cottage Living increased its rate base to 900,000, and then to one million in January/February 2007. Cottage Living also produced many one-time special-interest publications including Cottage Christmas and Cottage Makeovers.

Cottage Living also received many industry accolades including AdWeek’s ’2005 Startup of the Year’ and Advertising Age’s ’2005 Launch Worth Watching.’ It was also named to AdWeek’s ‘Hot List’ 10 Under 50 list for two consecutive years: 2006 and 2007.

I want to thank the many dedicated and talented Cottage Living staffers. It was developed, edited and published by some of the best talent in the business and we can remain proud of its many achievements.

S.A.”

Subject: Staff Announcement
To:       Lifestyle Business Unit Employees
From:   Sylvia Auton and Steve Sachs
Re:       Staff Announcement  

With the departure of Bruce Akin, we’re pleased to announce that Bruce Larson will assume the role of Senior Vice President and the lead executive in charge of SPC operations for Time Inc. He will be responsible for the general management of all operations in the Birmingham office, Oxmoor House and Southern Living at HOME.

Bruce joined the company in 1991 as a manager of corporate reporting. Over the last 17 years he has been promoted numerous times and has held jobs in a variety of areas, from corporate accounting to IT to consumer marketing and production.

During his tenure with Southern Progress, Bruce has shown outstanding decision-making and leadership skills and has been a key player responsible for the strong financial growth the company has enjoyed over the years.

Please join us in congratulating Bruce on his new assignment.”

To:  Southern Progress Colleagues
From:  Bruce Larson

I regret to announce that two longtime, trusted Southern Progress colleagues, Karla Hardy and Dick Gardner, have decided to retire at the end of the year.

Karla has been a steady presence in our advertising production circles ever since she joined the company in 1977 as advertising traffic manager for Progressive Farmer. In 1985, she accepted a position as assistant to the editor and advertising/production coordinator for Southern Living Classics, which merged later that year with the newly acquired Southern Accents, where she eventually moved up to advertising production manager. When we launched Coastal Living, Karla began working on both titles, and in 2007 she began helping manage advertising production for Cottage Living as well. And let’s not forget her work on Entrée. With her incredible depth of knowledge of advertising production and her keen eye for detail, it’s no wonder that Karla is so highly regarded. She knows how to best position each ad for space efficiency and visibility, and she knows how to work with our sales staff and advertisers to ensure that everyone is happy with the outcome.

Dick began his Southern Progress career just nine months after Karla, back in 1978. He spent the first 13 years of his SPC career on the corporate side, managing building operations, office services, and purchasing, before moving to the magazine side of the business as financial manager for Southern Living and Southern Accents. In 1995, he was named general manager of Southern Accents. One short year later, he added responsibility for the soon-to-be-launched Coastal Living. In 2004, he was named vice president and general manager for Coastal Living alone, and in 2007 he took on the GM role for Cottage Living as well. Dick is well respected for his wisdom, leadership. and kindness, not to mention his astute business sense. He knows his titles—and his staff—inside and out and never fails to find the right solution to any challenge. Plus, he has a great sense of humor.

There have been several times over the years when both Dick and Karla have been counted on to work on more than one title—a sure sign of how highly they’re valued around here—and each did so while managing to maintain a positive, calm outlook. Please join me in thanking them for all they’ve done for us and letting them know how much they’ll be missed.”

Subject: Staff Announcement
To: Lifestyle Business Unit Employees
From:  Sylvia Auton
Re:  Staff Announcement

After careful consideration, Chris Allen, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Cooking Light, has decided to leave the company.

A 26-year veteran, Chris first joined Cooking Light in 1991 as eastern advertising sales director and quickly rose through the ranks. Chris’ leadership and expertise resulted in enormous successes for the Cooking Light brand: Under his direction, Cooking Light has grown to become the world’s largest epicurean and healthy lifestyle magazine.

During his tenure, Cooking Light was named to AdWeek’s Hot List four times, Advertising Age’s ‘A List,’ Capell’s Circulation Report’s prestigious ‘Triple Play Award’ three times, and ‘Most Notable Launch of the Past 20 Years’ awarded by Media Industry Newsletter and Samir Husni in 2005. Chris also presided over the launch of several groundbreaking marketing campaigns, including The Cooking Light Cruise, the Cooking Light Fit House, and Cooking Light Supper Clubs.

An avid cook and exercise enthusiast, Chris lived the Cooking Light brand. He’s also a rock star: The Cooking Light band, Way Past Close, has performed throughout New York City and Birmingham to clients and colleagues.

Earlier in his career, Chris spent eight years at PEOPLE rising from salesperson to New York divisional sales manager.

Please join me in thanking Chris for his many contributions to Southern Progress and Time Inc. and wishing him the very best.”