WME Fashion Names Media Insider as President – WWD

Endeavor has tapped a fashion insider to lead its fashion portfolio, WME Fashion.

Susan Plagemann has been named president of WME Fashion heading up Art + Commerce, IMG Fashion Events and Properties, IMG Models and The Wall Group. Essentially, she is overseeing a portfolio that spans elements including image making, exposure, endorsements, cross promotions and more.

Most recently, Plagemann was chief business officer at Condé Nast’s style division. Prior to that she was publisher of American Vogue. Last September during New York Fashion Week, she exited the company after more than a decade-long run.

Plagemann was not available Friday to discuss her plans, according to a WME spokesperson.

She will be based in New York when she starts her new post later this month. Enhancing synergies across Endeavor’s fashion, sports and entertainment businesses will be a priority. Given the melding of all of those areas and the eagerness of models, athletes, creatives and other influencers to expand their business pursuits, there are plenty of crossover opportunities for WME Fashion’s new hire. In addition, WME’s fashion portfolio covers a range of services including talent representation, event ownership and production, consulting and original content creation.

The news of her appointment comes days after Endeavor, which also owns UFC, in addition to WME and IMG, delivered strong second-quarter earnings, fueled by its sports, live events and talent representation operations, as reported by Variety on Aug. 11. Year-over-year revenue gained at its key units. Strong demand for sports and events helped Endeavor post net income of $42.2 million on revenue of $1.3 billion, which was about an 18 percent gain compared with a year ago.

Plagemann first joined Condé Nast in January 2010 as the vice president and publisher of Vogue. In 2018, she was elevated to the chief business officer post of the style division. In that capacity she oversaw fashion, beauty, luxury and retail revenue for all of Condé Nast. The executive also headed up the commercial sides of Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Allure and Glamour. She exited Condé Nast during one of the publisher’s corporate reorganizations aimed at cost-cutting as it seeks to make its operations less reliant on print revenue and grow its digital businesses.

Earlier in her career Plagemann worked at Hearst Magazines. At different points in her career there she served as vice president and publisher of Marie Claire, vice president and publisher of Lifetime, publisher of Cosmopolitan and associate publisher, advertising at Esquire.

Plagemann had a brush with controversy In December 2020. At that time, The New York Times reported that Plagemann, who is white, was critical of Vanity Fair’s covers under editor in chief Radhika Jones, with two people alleging that she had said the magazine should feature “more people who look like us.” However, a company spokesperson denied this to The Times.