Samantha Barry, who has stepped down as editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, was one of the highest level Irish people working in journalism and the publishing industry in the US.
From Ballincollig in Cork, she worked with RTÉ, BBC and CNN before receiving her big break when she was announced in 2018 as the next editor-in-chief of Glamour, the US magazine with a storied history dating back to 1939 when it began covering the glitz of Hollywood.
The publication evolved over time from the glamour of the film industry and although it still covered fashion, beauty and celebrity culture, it also reported on politics, feminism and sexual health.
Barry’s appointment in 2018 was seen as a signal by the magazine’s owner Condé Nast that it recognised the publishing world was changing further – its sales on the news stands had fallen from more than 200,000 to about 100,000 copies in the previous four or five years – and the publishing giant wanted someone to take it into the digital age.
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Barry’s background was not traditional print journalism, but rather the then fast-emerging world of digital and television.
She had previously served as an executive producer for CNN Worldwide. Barry’s team at the US broadcaster had for its coverage of the 2016 presidential election received the first-ever Edward R Murrow Award for excellence in social media.
Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue and Condé Nast’s artistic director, at the time called Barry “fearless like so many leaders of the moment”.
“We recognised at once that Sam would be the perfect editor for a new, more ambitious era of Glamour’s future,” Wintour said.
During her time at Glamour, Barry oversaw a significant shift from print to digital publishing, pushing to grow its audience and revenues through social media and other digital platforms. In 2019 the company ceased publishing a monthly print edition of Glamour in the US to focus on its digital output. By 2025 Glamour had 19.6 million digital users monthly, 230 million video views and a social media following of 32.3 million.
Barry’s departure comes amid another shake up in the business strategy of Condé Nast. A few hours earlier Condé Nast chief executive Roger Lynch had announced the company would be closing Glamour‘s international editions in Germany, Mexico, and Spain.
Barry, who was promoted to global editorial director of Glamour in October 2024, had overseen these versions of the magazine also.
In a social media post on Thursday Barry said: “As the title’s business model evolved, I made clear to Anna and leadership at Condé that this was the right moment to leave and pursue new projects.”
Details of her future plans are currently unknown. However, Barry has said on several occasions that media was always the career she wanted.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner business podcast in 2024 she said: “Growing up in an Irish home, the radio was always on. The newspapers were coming in. If you’re on the bus, you’re talking about what’s happening either in your locality or even abroad.
“There is a curiosity among Irish people. There is also storytelling.”
A graduate of University College Cork in 1999 with a BA in English and psychology, Barry later received a masters in journalism from Dublin City University.
In Ireland she worked for both RTÉ and Newstalk. In 2010 she moved to Papua New Guinea where she was a content adviser for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation before later taking a role as a journalist and social media producer with BBC World News in London.
For the last 12 years home has been in Manhattan where, before joining Glamour, Barry was with CNN, becoming the global head of social and emerging media at the broadcaster in New York.
