Mover of the Week: The InStyle Collection’s Deanne Kaczerski

Our next mover of the week recently took on the editorial director role at Time Inc.’s newish InStyle Collection. Meet Deanne Kaczerski, who after studying to become a doctor (really!) nerded out over HTML, fell into digital publishing, and eventually helped to launch Hearst’s RealBeauty.com and Time Inc.’s MIMI. She was one of the first to review Alexander Wang’s debut collection (when AOL was still based in Virginia), and has run the sites for ELLE, Marie Claire, and MIMI. We chatted with the career chameleon for the details.

Truly by accident. As a science major in college, my plan was go into medicine—my senior year of college, the realization hit that becoming a doctor wasn’t my thing. Having also been a studio art minor, I knew I needed to do something more creative. Friends who were computer science majors introduced me to HTML, and the rest is basically history. I spent the next few years learning everything I could about coding, Photoshop, and what was available at the time about digital media before landing my first job creating content and programming it for the Web.

I’m going to sound like a total nerd, but I love to learn—any time I have an opportunity to develop a new skill, I will. Early on in my career, I had so many moments to be creative. While at AOL, I reviewed Alexander Wang’s debut collection from his eponymous line of knitwear pieces. I remember speaking to his cousin to have all of his samples sent to me in Dulles, Virginia, where AOL was headquartered. I shot each piece with my digital camera against a seamless and had my story posted within a few hours. My review was the first, that I know of, to have appeared online. We created a huge amount of fashion, beauty, and lifestyle content at a fast pace because our users craved it and the analytics proved it.

What other digital roles have you held?
While at Hearst, I launched RealBeauty.com, and oversaw the websites for ELLE and Marie Claire. Co-founding a site is a bit like running a startup—it forces you to wear many hats and make really tough decisions. Working there toughened me up and provided me with invaluable marketing and sales skills; it also proved that I could lead and manage a team and a successful business. This was also during a time when we didn’t have a slew of content resources, so to further grow and develop an online brand with just a few people was incredible.

I was selected to help create a brand in the beauty space. With no further direction, my manager and I created Real Beauty and all the corresponding materials. For me, this was a major turning point in my career because I was able to learn so much so quickly about the business side of edit. I also learned to be extremely resourceful (read: scrappy) as I had almost no resources (both people and money), so there was a lot of content swapping with partners who were game to experiment before syndication really became big. This experience has been invaluable as I’ve furthered my career.

As the founding editorial director, I created the MIMI brand, giving it voice, direction, and soul. My first week at Time Inc., I literally locked myself in a room and wrote the MIMI Manifesto—the 47-page document that the team still uses every single day because it encompasses the edit guidelines and standards, editorial processes, a full reference guide, style guide, voice, positioning, and even demo profiles. I also created and oversaw the entire editorial calendar, social strategy, and played a major role in defining the sales and marketing materials, including our general presentation.

I have been entrusted to help grow the InStyle brand through digital creativity. Ariel [Foxman] is a visionary and has built an incredibly powerful brand, so I’m quite lucky he has afforded me the opportunity to push the boundaries and develop new content areas, while redefining current ones. I may be doing a little less beauty, but as a fashion and beauty gal at heart, I will always find a way to sneak it in.

My husband and I went to our favorite dive bar for pizza and beer. While that may seem like a low key way to celebrate, I never really eat pizza anymore. So this was a momentous way to celebrate both my career and my taste buds. (I may have also purchased a pair of Alexander Wang shoes and a pair of Acne flats.)

When you hire smart people (sometimes smarter than you) and allow them to do their thing, they become even more invested, more passionate, and more likely to give 110 percent each and every single day. As an independent thinker, I don’t want “yes” people on my team—you don’t get innovation or thought starters from status quo. To truly move the needle in today’s digital space, you need to hire editors, product managers, designers, and so on who have an agile ethos to their work ethic. I am not a micromanager, but I also don’t hire people who need to be micromanaged.

One really sticks out in my memory: ‘In Defense of the Mom Bod’ (mimichatter.com). It’s brutally honest personal accounts that forced me to be introspective and vulnerable. It was a little nerve-racking because I posted a selfie of me in a bikini for the world to see and judge.