Radhika Jones, the editor of Vanity Fair since 2017, said on Thursday she would step down after seven years of leading the magazine.
Ms. Jones, 52, said in an email to Vanity Fair’s staff that she was leaving to take on new challenges, adding that she didn’t want to experience the “horror of staying too long at the party.”
“I began to feel, more powerfully, the pull of new goals in my life, around family and friends and writing and other ways to make an impact,” Ms. Jones wrote.
Ms. Jones said in her email that her last day would be in the spring.
Anna Wintour, the chief content officer of Condé Nast, the publisher of Vanity Fair, told staff on Thursday that Ms. Jones would help with the transition “as we start the search for a new editor.”
“We look forward to Vanity Fair’s exciting next chapter,” Ms. Wintour said.
Ms. Jones is leaving one of journalism’s top jobs at a time of profound disruption for the magazine business. Though many magazines have been shuttered or sold over the last decades, as advertising pages shrank, Vanity Fair has held on as a staple of Condé Nast, which also publishes Vogue and The New Yorker.
Ms. Jones started the job in December 2017, succeeding Graydon Carter, who retired that year after 25 years at the helm. Ms. Jones was something of a surprise choice to replace Mr. Carter. A former editorial director of the books department at The New York Times and a former top editor at Time magazine, Ms. Jones was picked for the top job over many of Mr. Carter’s top lieutenants.
