Radhika Jones

Moderator | Editor-in-Chief, Vanity Fair

RADHIKA JONES is the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. She previously held senior editorial roles at The New York Times, TIME magazine (where she oversaw TIMEs Person of the Year and Time 100 franchises), and The Paris Review. Jones graduated summa cum laude with a BA degree from Harvard and holds a PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia University. Between college and graduate school, she lived in Taipei, Taiwan, where she taught English as a second language, and in Moscow, Russia, where she worked at the Moscow Times. Since her appointment in 2017, Vanity Fair has grown its audience significantly, and the magazine has been widely recognized for its fresh new direction, beginning with her first, groundbreaking cover subject, Lena Waithe. Jones’ focus has been on repositioning VF as a cultural barometer, and she has led a purposeful modernization of the brand with regard to both its content and its staff while expanding its platform reach to documentary, TV, podcasts, and beyond. Jones’ mission is to capture the zeitgeist, while also looking ahead to identify the most important and influential artists, activists, and intellectuals of our time. The special September 2020 issue “The Great Fire,” guest-edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates, with its cover painting of Breonna Taylor by Amy Sherald, was a milestone for the publication, drawing attention to the intersection of art, activism, and social justice. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son and serves on the nonprofit boards of The Paris Review and of CARE, where she is co-vice chair.