Features Director - Cosmopolitan

LONDON, United Kingdom

JOB DESCRIPTION

At Hearst UK, there’s always more to the story. Join us as Cosmopolitan’s Features Director to start the next chapter in your career.

We’re the UK’s leading premium publisher, and the people behind iconic media brands such as Esquire, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and Good Housekeeping. We’ve created a working environment that encourages everyone to pull together. We never stop looking for brave new ideas. We’ll always try to develop and improve, we trust each other to do our best, and we have fun as we build on our heritage to make history.

Cosmopolitan is looking for an imaginative, resourceful, switched-on, digitally-savvy and people-friendly Features Director to lead our award-winning features team, both online and in print. You’ll work across our many platforms, leading a team of superstar writers and editors to develop industry-leading features and campaigns that will surprise and delight our audience.

ABOUT THE ROLE

You will be responsible for overseeing all features content, spanning news and politics, career and money, health and fitness, sex and relationships, and broader brand projects and campaigns. As well as developing must-read ideas, you will write, commission, and edit content ranging from longform investigations to topical op-eds, as well as setting and implementing the wider features strategy across the website, magazine and our many other platforms.

Alongside the Features Editor and Sex & Relationships Editor, you will oversee the planning and creation of the news and features we run on-site, ensuring they feed into our broader brand vision and hit our KPIs. And in addition to overseeing the development and editing of the magazine’s Earn, Body and Love sections, you will work closely with the Commissioning Director to craft entertaining and thought-provoking longform features for our Read section.

You will also manage a department of four, ensuring their learning and development is a priority, and building a strong sense of team spirit, shared goals, and core values.

ABOUT YOU

You will be passionate about the issues affecting the lives of our audience, brimming with cutting-edge, thought-provoking ideas they won’t be able to put down (or click away from). You’ll be as comfortable tackling sensitive, hard-hitting topics as you are developing lighter, trend-led pieces that focus on making our reader smile. Whether educational, provocative, inspirational, or entertaining, you’ll be bursting with buzzy, topical ideas and creative methods of storytelling.

You’ll ensure Cosmopolitan’s brand values are being upheld, and that we are responding to breaking news in a timely but responsible manner. You will have a good grasp of media law alongside the wider media landscape, ensuring that copy is balanced, fair and written by the correct journalist. You’ll have a sensible and mature approach to everything from breaking news to contentious topics, with a cool head under pressure and a focus on copy that is thoughtful, factually accurate and legally-sound.

You will also be passionate about people and leading careers, managing a team of four, ensuring they are fulfilled in their roles and that all work targets and deadlines are met.

We are looking for applicants who have experience running a features desk, managing an in-house team, and working with freelance contributors. Digital experience is highly desirable, but a proven track-record of writing, commissioning, and editing high-quality features across a variety of topics and styles, is more important.

WHAT WE OFFER

At Hearst UK, you can choose from a huge range of perks and benefits that can help you learn well, work well and live well including:

• 25 days’ holiday (with the option to buy up to 5 additional holiday days)
• Hybrid working – Two days per week in the office
• Discounted gym membership
• Healthcare cash plan
• Spend a charity day with your favourite good cause
• Life assurance and pension scheme
• Regular socials and more!

There’s more to your story than you imagine. And the next chapter begins right here.