Blog
Michelle Lee – 2021 Legends
By ADCOLOR September 15, 2021 |Global Head of Editorial and Publishing at Netflix. Since first starting at Allure in 2015, Lee has been committed to championing diversity and expanding the definition of beauty. Lee and her staff declared the “End of Anti-Aging” in their September 2017 issue and took an oath to remove the term “anti-aging” from their own lexicon. It was a bold statement that challenged readers and brands to look at and speak about aging in a more positive way — and it has made ripples in the beauty industry and beyond.
She was named Adweek’s 2017 Editor of the Year while Allure won Magazine of the Year for their groundbreaking covers, such as the July 2017 This Is American Beauty cover featuring model Halima Aden in a hijab.
A notably digital-first editor, she spearheaded the relaunch of allure.com in 2016, revamping the site with innovative new tools like its product sampling “Try It” button along with a “Buy It” button. Allure won a Bronze Clio Award in 2017 for its inventive Allure Unbound app, an augmented reality experience that allowed readers of the magazine to make pages come to life and even take a selfie with cover star Gigi Hadid.
In addition to overseeing content at Allure, she also works closely with business teams on branded content and video, as well as ancillary businesses like the Allure Beauty Box, Best of Beauty seal licensing, events, and major partnerships like Allure’s Shop Like a Beauty Editor partnership with Ulta in 2017 or the Allure Incubator web series with Covergirl in 2018, produced by Bunim & Murray. Lee was previously the Editor in Chief and Chief Marketing Officer at NYLON, where she was in charge of content as well as branded content. While there, she expanded the scope of the 16-year-old brand aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds, doubling beauty coverage and adding new topics of interest, including politics and culture.
In 2015, she launched NYLON Studio, the company’s in-house creative agency, working on large 360-degree campaigns for global fashion, beauty, and tech brands (including Reebok, Clinique, and Tiffany).
Prior to those positions, she was Co-Founder and Chief Content and Strategy Officer at branded content agency Magnified Media. Lee, who was featured as a “Thought Leader” by Google in a 2013 series on video in the future, has launched brands and digital projects, both big and small.
Part of the launch teams for Us Weekly and The Daily Front Row, Lee also helped to launch CosmoGIRL, which won AdWeek’s Launch of the Year. She went on to senior positions at Mademoiselle and the ASME Award-winning Glamour.
She is a Board member at Gold House and ColorComm; and she sits on the Advisory Council at Act to Change. She is a member of Adweek’s Advisory Council and Twitter’s Content Council, the Sequoia Scout program, and was named to the Gold House A100 of most influential Asians, Digiday’s Glossy 50, and Create & Cultivate’s Creative 100 in 2017. She is a recipient of a 2019 ColorComm Circle Award.