Atoosa Rubenstein
Atoosa Rubenstein is the editor-in-chief of Seventeen magazine, the premier teen title in the United States, with 14.45 million total readers each month. Rubenstein was previously the founding editor of CosmoGIRL!, Hearst Magazines. successful teen spinoff of Cosmopolitan. When she founded CosmoGIRL! in August 1999, Rubenstein was only 26 years old, making her the youngest-ever teen magazine editor. Undder her editorship, CosmoGIRL! more than doubled its initial rate base of 500,000 in 1999 to 1,250,000 in 2003. CosmoGIRL! has struck a chord with the female teenage audience and has show immense growth, having doubled its rate base to one million in February 2002.
Rubenstein.s inherent ability to understand teens emotionally, as well as intellectually, has enabled CosmoGIRL! to become a leading force within the teen market in a very short period of time. A New York native, Rubenstein began working in magazines throughout her junior and senior years of college, as an intern at Sassy magazine. After graduating from college, she took a job as a fashion assistant at Cosmopolitan, under the leadership of renowned editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown. Quickly her talent and enthusiasm propelled her through the ranks, where she became a senior fashion editor at Cosmopolitan in five short years.
In 1998, Cathleen P. Black, president of Hearst Magazines, decided to create a new teen title and asked Rubenstein to develop a prototype. Within 48 hours, she presented a product that was so compelling that Black offered her the job as editor-in-chief on the spot.
Since CosmoGIRL!.s launch, Rubenstein has been featured in the coveted Crain's New York Business' "40 Under 40" and Folio's "30 Under 30." The magazine has also received many industry kudos, including being named by Adweek as "Startup of the Year" in 2000 and as one of Advertising Age's top five magazines for 2001. CosmoGIRL! expanded its publication to 10 issues annually in 2000 and launched its online counterpart.www.cosmogirl.com--to give its Web-savvy readers more opportunities to interact with the magazine than ever before.