strategist
editor
writer
home. travel. luxury. fashion. Culture. Lifestyle
hellolaurendecarlo@gmail.com
Global VP, Creative Strategy, Condé Nast
Hi!
I’m currently the VP of Creative Strategy at Condé Nast overseeing the Travel category.
I get to brainstorm new initiatives across brands and platforms at Condé Nast.
I used to be the Director of Strategic Projects at Condé Nast Traveler. I oversaw Women Who Travel, the leading travel authority for self-identifying women. WWT consists of a lot of cool stuff:
Group trips to places like Colombia, Cuba and Mexico
An award-winning podcast
Meet-ups in cities around the country
A Facebook Group with +150K members
Personal essays, in-depth reporting and service pieces written with conviction and honesty
Condé Nast Traveler isn’t just a magazine—it’s a brand. And I worked on all parts of it.
When I was the Deputy Editor I put together CNT’s super-vetted guides to cities like New Orleans, Tel Aviv, and Sydney and edited Travel Intel, a quirky compendium of tips, tricks and miscellany to help you travel better and smarter.
I also ran point on our celebrated annual issues such as:
The Gold List - an ode to our all-time favorite hotels.
Where in the World to Eat - an exhaustive guide to the most phenomenal places to eat from people who eat, cook, and travel for a living
The Experience Makers - a mega-list of the world’s top travel specialists and the amazing trips only they can plan
I also wrote stories that hit on an emotional level.
Like that time I wrote about sailing solo to the Galapagos Islands and befriended an octogenarian couple along the way. . .
. . .or my dad’s first international trip. He entered a contest for newspaper boys and his essay won him an all-expense-paid trip to Portugal and Spain. That’s him, on the far right, departing from JFK.
We want you to feel at home in the world.
Travel is freedom. It’s knowledge. It’s empowerment. At times it can also be wildly intimidating and overwhelming. But through our stories, podcasts, travel summits, and group trips, the hope is that you’ll travel farther and more confidently every time you set off into the world.
Before writing about how to vacation better…
I launched a magazine about beautiful homes and the people who created them.
In 2012 I worked alongside the brilliant design editor Wendy Goodman on
New York Magazine’s
Design Hunting.
We went inside fantastic homes
We talked about how they came to be
We shared tools & resources & inspiration
We scoured design shops to find heaps of great stuff to fill your own home
We were welcomed into some of the most stunning homes in New York.
Peeking inside a neighbors’ window is every New Yorker’s favorite hobby. Imagine getting paid to do that.
We wanted to show homes as living, breathing things.
Every house, every renovation, every teeny design detail has a story behind it. We heard it all, from the guy who wanted a heated lap pool on his Chelsea roof to the family who turned the downstairs storefront into a old fashioned front porch. We even found some beautiful archival photos of Andy Warhol’s bedroom; Faye Dunaway’s bathroom; and the Plaza Hotel suite Frank Lloyd Wright lived in for five years.
Before going inside the most gorgeous homes in New York City…
I edited New York Weddings (and was a consulting editor on Brides) because I wanted a magazine that talked about getting married the way real people talk about getting married.
I also wanted to solve real life problems and show how someone with no spare time and a super-tight budget
can actually plan a pretty great wedding.
We focused on the stuff that mattered and ditched all that cutesy, precious stuff that seemed to always find its way into wedding magazines.
Before traveling and writing about people’s homes and talking weddings, I spent a decade covering the people impacting fashion.
I covered the business of fashion. I talked to Jay-Z about growing Rocawear into a $400M business. I sat down with Beyoncé when she launched her clothing line. I previewed Diddy’s first-ever collection in his apartment before it hit the runway at Fashion Week. I shadowed Jennifer Lopez the night before her first big runway show. If only Instagram existed in the early 2000’s…
Let’s chat!
We can talk about work stuff, life stuff, or whatever’s on your mind!
hellolaurendecarlo@gmail.com
VP, Creative Strategy, Condé Nast