Abby Carvosso spends her weekends dressed down in jeans and wellies, happily tending her vegetable patch in the garden of her fifteenth-century cottage in the small Hampshire village of Crookham. "Nobody would think I was publisher of Grazia," she says.
But that is exactly what she has been since the £16m launch of Bauer Media's fashion and celebrity weekly five years ago, the biggest-ever launch in the women's lifestyle market. Carvosso, who is today dressed in the glossy magazine publisher's uniform of head-to-toe black, describes her time at Grazia as "the best job in magazine publishing", flying between Milan, Paris and New York and meeting international designers including Armani, Versace and Dolce and Gabbana.
Carvosso has devoured magazines from an early age - graduating from Horse and Pony to Sky, Elle, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire - and her passion for magazines and the Grazia brand has helped catapult the magazine to number 11 in the women's lifestyle market, overtaking glossy rivals Vogue and Elle.
Last year, advertising in glossy magazines was down almost 19%, but Grazia bucked the trend by being up 3%, with an average January to June circulation of 228,694 copies.
Carvosso says: "With Grazia, we wanted to create a completely new category, the weekly glossy, and we wanted to attract premium advertising from the monthly market to the weekly market, which we have done. It is not about circulation growth for Grazia; it is more important that we have a very upscale audience that is very attractive to advertisers."
In recognition of her success, Carvosso was promoted to the position of head of magazine sales last December, after Suzanne Miron, Bauer Media's director of women's media, left to start her own consultancy. Claudine Collins, joint head of investment at MediaCom, says: "Abby knows her market, she is professional and therefore I am sure she'll do a very good job for Bauer. They desperately needed a head of magazines so I am glad there is someone in place to do the role."
Carvosso is now responsible for all 17 magazines published in London by Bauer Media - across the music, film, men's, women's weekly and specialist portfolios - and she oversees a magazine sales team of about 80 people.
Her appointment is part of a restructuring of Bauer's commercial operation: the company's trading team, led by Richard Hayes, now reports to Carvosso, and she works closely with Karen Stacey, director of broadcast sales and Richard Phillips, the new head of digital.
She says: "We have refocused our business and we are working more smartly. The new commercial structure allows us to look across the portfolio of magazines, radio and digital, and to have deeper conversations with our customers and clients."
Challenging market
Carvosso has taken the helm of Bauer's magazine division at a tough time, as advertising spend on consumer magazines dropped an estimated 18% over the last 12 months, down from £633m in 2008 to £517m in 2009, according to ZenithOptimedia. But Bauer Media, which commands a 21.1% share of the consumer magazine market, emerged as one of the strongest performers in last August's ABCs, and Carvosso is "very confident" about the position of Bauer's brands in 2010.
She waxes lyrical about star performers Closer, which is "number one on the newsstand for the majority of the weeks of the year"; More, which has about 35,000 Facebook friends and is "absolutely the title for advertisers targeting young women in their 20s"; and FHM, which is stabilising its position in the men's market thanks to the "exciting" editorial initiatives put in place by new editor Colin Kennedy.
High praise is also reserved for Heat, which Carvosso describes as "on fire", before cackling with laughter at her own, unintended, pun. Once she recovers her composure, she explains: "Where products are clearly differentiated and have editorial excellence they will win, and Heat has absolutely delivered that. I am incredibly confident about 2010 because our brands are in a brilliant place, and we really understand who our consumers are and how they interact with our titles."
She continues: "This year will not be easy - overall it will be flat - but there should be areas where we can show growth. The hardest thing is that there is no visibility: I can be confident because of the position of our brands, rather than the market. Early signs for Q1 are that the market is tough, but in certain areas it is really strong."
Latest NRS figures show top performers for Bauer Media are More and Grazia - despite new-found competition from free weekly Stylist (see box, below) - and Carvosso predicts a good performance for Bauer in the next set of magazine ABCs, with solid results for the women's weeklies and stability in the troubled men's sector.
Carvosso will not disclose what proportions of Bauer's profits come from its magazine, radio and digital divisions, but she confirms that print and radio are the biggest revenue drivers, with digital an "important" offshoot of the print and broadcast brands.
She says: "Whether we are entertaining people through radio, magazines or digital, we need to ensure we have innovative brands to connect with those audiences. Print is the leader, and all our plans are based on the fact that print is very important for us."
However, the publisher who spent two years working on Project Grazia before the magazine's launch is uncharacteristically quiet when pressed on plans for future print launches. Media Week senses Carvosso would leap at the chance to launch a new magazine, but her only comment - for now - is: "Launches are the lifeblood of this industry and there are areas where there are great opportunities for growth. We are constantly looking at all areas, all sectors and all audiences for opportunities."
Carvosso's husband used to be an RAF fighter pilot based in Scotland, and for three years - while working on the launch of Grazia - she spent the week flying between the UK, Europe and the US and the weekends travelling to her family in Leuchars, Fife, getting up at 4.30am on Monday mornings to be at her desk by 09.30am.
These days, Carvosso has a relatively short commute of one hour 20 minutes, and she spends the time engaged in a "magazine fest", reading all the Bauer magazines and those of her competitors cover to cover. So the pace of life is less hectic than before, but - with an extra 16 magazines to raise revenue from - only just.
Luckily, Carvosso is not one for sitting still. "I love a challenge, I love being busy and, most importantly, I love making money." With that she dashes off to her next appointment, and the muddy figure digging potatoes in the allotment seems very far removed indeed.
CV
2010
Head of magazine sales, Bauer Media
2007
Deputy managing director, women's lifestyle (Grazia and Pop), Bauer Media
2004
Launch publisher, Grazia
2002
Commercial director, New Woman
1997
Sales executive, Red
1995
Sales executive, Conde Nast
Lives: Crookham, Hampshire
Family: Married to Paul, a pilot for British Airways, with two children: Sofia, three-and-a-half and Henry, one-and-a-half
Carvosso on...
Grazia's competition with Stylist
Paid-for magazines have a very different connection with readers to free magazines, and therefore a very different advertising story. It is still early days for Stylist in terms of its distribution: is it getting into the hands of upscale women and therefore does it have a strong advertising story? Advertisers need to understand that distribution and that will be the proof of the pudding of its success.
Relations with sister company H Bauer
H Bauer has a very different market, consumers and advertising profile to Bauer Media, but it is very important to keep talking to each other. We share print production and other back office functions and H Bauer sells our inserts. There is communication, rather than integration.
Barry McIlheney's appointment as PPA chief executive
This is a fabulous appointment and very good for Bauer, as Barry launched Zoo and ran our men's portfolio. Magazines are really robust at the moment, and the industry needs to be really proud of what it has achieved. I think Barry can do that for us - he is a great spokesperson and will ensure magazines get a greater voice.