Leaf Group Hires Lindsey Abramo as its New Chief Revenue Officer

The lifestyle and arts publisher Leaf Group has hired Lindsey Abramo as its new chief revenue officer, where she will report to chief executive officer Sean Moriarty, Adweek has learned. Abramo began the role Monday. Rather than operate purely as a media company, the Leaf Group portfolio contains a variety of brands with distinct business models, including the editorial titles Hunker and Well + Good, the arts marketplace Society6 and the events franchise The Other Art Fair. In April 2021, the Graham Holdings Company acquired the publisher for $323 million. Leaf Group divides its revenue operations into two buckets, advertising and reader revenue. In her new role, Abramo will oversee the former, while the general managers of the individual brands will remain responsible for affiliate programs, ticketing and marketplace revenue. “What got me excited about this opportunity is getting back to leading brand-first,” she said. “This is not a short-term game. We want to grow and invest in brands that are going to be around for a long time.” Abramo will oversee advertising across the Leaf Group portfolio, including flagship properties Well + Good and Hunker. Abramo joins Leaf Group from Vox Media, where she most recently served as its senior vice president of client partnerships. She brings more than 20 years of advertising experience to her new role, having previously worked at Refinery29, PopSugar and Group Nine before joining Vox Media via acquisition. At Leaf Group, Abramo will oversee an advertising business whose revenue comes primarily from brand partnerships and programmatic sources, a less lucrative model on a per-user basis than the branded content operations at Vox Media, but one that is arguably less susceptible to pullback in the face of economic headwinds. The diversity of business models under the Leaf Group umbrella will also help mitigate the effects of a potential downturn in advertising spend, as the majority of its revenue comes from its marketplace ventures, according to Abramo. Leaf Group plans to embrace new channels and ad categories Under Abramo, Leaf Group will look to deepen its presence in its strongest sectors, expand into new advertising categories and bolster its footprint in new channels, such as podcasting and experiential. At the flagship lifestyle brand Well + Good, Abramo aims to expand the number of subjects with which its wellness content intersects. For instance, rather than limit wellness solely to health or exercise, Abramo plans to widen its advertising coverage into adjacent areas, such as home, food and parenting. She also plans to broach new advertising categories, such as luxury and pharmaceuticals, that Leaf Group could grow into naturally. Given the cachet of art media properties like Society6, Saatchi Art and The Other Art Fair, Abramo believes Leaf Group could court luxury brands endemic to the space. And in Livestrong, another Leaf Group property, Abramo sees a natural extension into clinical and pharmaceutical brand partners. Finally, as agencies increasingly prefer multi-channel ad buys, Abramo hopes to increase the number of surfaces against which brands can advertise. Leaf Group plans to launch additional podcasts in the near future, complementing its current roster of two audio products. In the experiential realm, Abramo believes Leaf Group events could lean more deeply into sponsorship efforts. Many of its events require tickets, which have allowed them to flourish without a heavy advertising presence, but Abramo sees the absence as an opportunity to bring brand partners more holistically into the events space. “We have podcasts, content and experiential, but we can also plug into businesses like The Other Art Fair and the arts commerce site Society6, which no other publishing companies can offer,” Abramo said. “Commercially, our diversity just makes us wildly unique.”