2024 MATRIX HONOREE

Credit: Celeste Sloman

NINA GARCIA

Editor-in-Chief, ELLE, Hearst Magazines

Nina Garcia is the editor-in-chief of ELLE, the number one fashion media brand in the world, with 45 international editions and a global audience of 18+ million. Nina is the first Latina to lead a major American fashion title, and since she took the helm in September 2017, the brand’s footprint has never been larger.

Nina oversaw a dynamic redesign that complements the magazine’s thought-provoking features and showcases fashion in the context of culture, winning Adweek’s Hottest Fashion Magazine in 2019. Her covers have made news well beyond the newsstand, from Vice President Kamala Harris on the eve of the election to Selena Gomez gracing ELLE’s first-ever Latinx issue. For her impactful issues, ELLE also received an ASME nomination for General Excellence in Service and Lifestyle magazines in early 2022 and the Daily Front Row’s Magazine of the Year award in 2023.

Under Nina’s leadership, ELLE launched conservation issues spotlighting environmental activists from Jane Fonda to Greta Thunberg, working with Conservation International. And, for ELLE’s groundbreaking cover featuring FKA Twigs discussing intimate partner violence, Nina received WomanKind’s Phoenix Woman of the Year in Media Award for bringing attention to the issue. In 2021, she was also the recipient of the CFDA’s Media Award in Honor of Eugenia Sheppard and was named one of USA Today’s Women of the Year in 2022.

Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, Nina is a graduate of Boston University and FIT. She began her career at Mirabella and served as fashion director of ELLE from 2000 to 2008, after holding other roles at the title since 1995. Nina was awarded the Oracle Award by Fashion Group International (FGI) in 2010, and she was the creative director of Marie Claire before returning to ELLE in 2017.

Nina has been a judge on the Peabody Award-winning Project Runway since it launched in 2004 and has appeared as a style expert on Good Morning America, The View, Today, and more.

After undergoing a preventative double mastectomy in 2019, which she shared in a moving op-ed, Nina joined the board of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) and is involved with The Basser Center for BRCA Research and the Alliance in Reconstructive Surgery Foundation. She also serves on the board of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group, FIT, the CFDA, and is on the advisory board for Fashion Trust Arabia.

Nina lives in New York with her husband and their two sons.

Presenting the Matrix Award to Nina Garcia

LUCY KAYLIN

Editorial Director, Hearst Magazines

Lucy Kaylin is the Editorial Director of Hearst Magazines.  She began her career at Vogue before joining the staff of GQ, where she rose through the ranks over nearly two decades, writing more than one-hundred articles for the publication.  Kaylin also served as executive editor at Marie Claire and deputy editor at O, The Oprah Magazine before becoming editor in chief of O.  During her seven years at the helm, the magazine boasted one of the largest monthly magazine circulations and earned numerous accolades, including two National Magazine Awards and the ASME cover contest (Kaylin’s first year as editor in chief), as well as being named Advertising Age’s Magazine of the Year.  The author of two non-fiction books, Kaylin has served on the boards of ASME and Dress for Success, and is currently on the Board of Advisors for the NYU Center for Publishing and Applied Liberal Arts.