Vanessa Kingori MBE | Chief Business Officer, Conde Nast Britain & Vogue European Business Advisor

Vanessa Kingori MBE is a multi award-winning, British based, businesswoman, diversity proponent, youth advocate and mother.

With over 15 years experience in the media industry Vanessa has a special focus on business transformation, digitalisation and change management.

Vanessa’s appointment to lead the British Vogue business in 2017 made history. She is British Vogue’s first female business lead in its 105 year history. She is also Conde Nast Britain’s first Black Publisher or business lead.

Vanessa’s role at British Vogue has involved a significant shift in the brand’s purpose and business strategy with an emphasis on diversity of perspective, social responsibility and female empowerment. This has led to multiple business awards, digital transformation, revenue growth and revenue diversification.

The unprecedented success of British Vogue’s revenue transformation during her tenure, has led to a recent promotion and expansion of her role to Chief Business Officer across the entire British company and encompassing all Conde Nast Britain brands – Vogue, GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Tatler, Conde Nast Traveler, House & Garden and The World of Interiors. This is in addition to continuing her existing responsibilities directly leading British Vogue and a further expansion of role to support the Vogue brand across Europe as Vogue’s European Advisor.

Prior to British Vogue, Vanessa was Publisher of British GQ, also signaling many firsts for the company. Before her 12 years at Conde Nast she worked at Hearst magazines and the Evening Standard.

Vanessa is a prolific public speaker. Her most frequent requests are from Footsie 100 companies to share her thoughts on digital transformation, change management and purpose in business. This includes speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Barclays, Google/YouTube, McKinsey and many more.

Vanessa has topped Campaign’s Top 10 Trailblazers for 2020 and Top 10 Commercial Chiefs in Britain by Campaign in 2021. Vanessa has been credited amongst the 100 Most Influential Black Britons every year for the past 7 years. Her body of work and services to British Media led her to be awarded an MBE on the Queen’s 90th Birthday Honours Lists, 2016.

In her work as youth advocate Vanessa sits on UAL’s Board of Directors as a Governor and Trustee and enjoys a long standing role as Visiting Fellow at the University of the Arts London where she supports and mentors students across the institution’s 6 colleges which include Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion. This is in addition to her key responsibilities giving governance regarding the organisations key business decisions. Vanessa was awarded a UAL Honorary Doctorate in 2018 and an Honorary Fellowship from Royal Holloway.

Her work as diversity proponent includes the judging panel of the Black British Business Awards, the Veuve Clicquot Business Women of The Year Award, The Mayor of London’s TFL’s diversity in advertising competition. Vanessa is a member of The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Race Equality Taskforce. In support of women entrepreneurs, Vanessa is also part of a microfund Peanut StartHer which is focused on helping pre-seed entrepreneurs in tech and business, with a particular focus on giving purpose driven startups, founded by women, their first boost.

Vanessa organised and lead #SHARETHEMICUK to highlight the accomplishments and contribution of high achieving Black women, using the allyship of successful White women during Black history month UK 2020. The project was backed by Instagram and participants included Priya Ahluwalia, Bernadine Evaristo, Bianca Saunders, June Sarpong, Emma Dabiri, Kourtney Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham, Sheryl Sandberg, Christiane Amanpour and Brooke Shields with a combined audience of 175 million. It helped to launch several exciting new collaborations, inspiring conversations, books, podcasts and new friendships between unlikely pairings.