Katie Drummond, executive managing editor of Gizmodo Media Group, sent out the following announcement on Tuesday:
Allies —
Your constant interrogations and relentless sleuthing can, finally, come to an end. I am here to tell you who the new editor-in-chief of Gizmodo is. Kelly Bourdet is now (as of mid-February) your unstoppable, unflappable, utterly fearless leader.
In our conversations with Kelly, it quickly became clear that she was the only person for this job — believe me, it’s a daunting and sometimes impossible gig to wrangle all of you lunatics, while constantly thinking about Gizmodo’s larger mission and vital role in the tech, science, and culture landscape (a role that has, truly truly truly, never been more important than it is now). Kelly values the stance Gizmodo takes in our coverage and approach to stories, and she has the brilliant strategic and editorial mind we need to amplify and improve it. Oh, and she’s also an ass-kicker. You’ve been warned.
A bit more about her: Kelly joins us from Vocativ, where she was most recently the Editorial Director, overseeing all aspects of the editorial operation and launching the site’s technology, science, health, and sexuality coverage. Before that, she worked at Refinery29, where she founded and led the site’s health, science, and technology verticals, ultimately working as Deputy Editor. The health vertical she founded was a finalist for Digiday’s “Best New Vertical of 2014” award, and an editorial series she edited won the “Publisher of the Year” award. Kelly also previously worked as an editor at Nerve Media and was a long-time contributor to Vice’s Motherboard, where she wrote the weekly column “Future Sex,” which explored the intersection of science and technology with sexuality and personal relationships. She’s also written for Popular Science, Vice, Salon, Buzzfeed and others.
Kelly joins us at a time when Gizmodo has never been stronger. Traffic is at an all-time high: The site is poised to hit a new record month in January, with around 22 million US uniques, after scoring three record months in 2016 and seeing traffic leap up from around 14 million monthly uniques in the year prior. (Btw – that’s because of all of you! Nicely done!). We also just added a ton of new talent–hello Libby, Ryan, Rae!–and Kelly is going to add even more before long.
With all these exciting changes, I’m also excited to announce that your beloved deputy Dicko is soaring to new heights as the deputy executive managing editor at Gizmodo Media Group — working with me, Veronica, and Matt to lead a growing newsroom of unruly bloggers and juggle editorial, audience, recruiting, business, and other mandates. I know you’re all sad to see him go, but take solace in the fact that Alex’s sharp editorial sensibilities, A+ judgment, and incomprehensible Aussie-Speak will now benefit every GMG property, making our entire team that much stronger. Seriously, we really, really need him over in this pod, and we’re taking him from you. Sorry.
Kelly starts in a couple weeks, and of course Mario will be right there with her to continue leading the team. Alex will also be at Gizmodo to help out as Kelly gets acquainted with everybody and learns to translate Gizmodo-Slack-Speak into actual English. You’re in good hands, guys — I’d never let it be any other way.
Best,
Katie
