Bonnie Fuller, president and editor-in-chief of Hollywoodlife.com, at her offices in New York City.Michael Falco/The Globe and Mail
Bonnie Fuller is running late. The Canadian-born "magazine queen," currently president and editor-in-chief of Hollywoodlife.com, an online celebrity and lifestyle site, arrives frazzled in the pouring rain for her June speaking engagement at the Women of Influence luncheon in Toronto after a series of misadventures. First, a futile attempt to get coffee found her locked out of her hotel room. Then, after Ms. Fuller persuaded security to let her back in, she discovered hotel staff had lost her speech notes.
Once on stage, the former chief editorial director of American Media Inc. and former editor-in-chief of American publications such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Us Weekly and Marie Claire immediately won over her well-coiffed audience by reciting the morning's calamities, laughing at herself along the way. Is this the same driven Bonnie Fuller who was known to keep staff as late as 4 a.m. at Us Weekly?
"I'd say I'm a perfectionist, but you don't have to be perfect every day at every thing," says Ms. Fuller. "You have to give yourself a break.
"There's also a difference between trying to achieve a certain goal professionally and knowing what you need to do to get there and whipping yourself up about housework or running around trying to buy the perfect present for your cousin's 30th birthday party. You have to decide what you're going to be most focused on. For me, I'm most focused on my kids, my husband and my job."
High-profile editor on leadership, being a perfectionist and 'having it all'
Ms. Fuller describes her current leadership style at Hollywoodlife.com as inclusive and participatory. Now that she's launching a new business of her own from the ground up, she's working with her tightest budget ever and a staff of only 12 people. While she believes it's important to inspire her staff and make them feel part of a greater goal, at a certain point she makes the decisions as the leader.
"You have to provide a vision," says Ms. Fuller. "People look for a vision. When you're in charge, they want to know what you want to do. They don't want to be sent down one road and then down another road. People like to know that this is where they're going and for you to be decisive."
Ms. Fuller's own career path has been full of reinvention, from her early years in the 1980s as editor of Canadian magazines Flare and YM to her rise to the top in New York in the 90s. But despite editorial success, the publishing world could be particularly harsh, as Glamour was when it fired her as editor-in-chief in 2001 without warning.
She says the best advice she received at that time was from David Brown, a movie and show producer married to Helen Gurley Brown who had lunch with Ms. Fuller when she was between Glamour and her next position at Us Weekly.
"He said, 'Never, under any circumstance, face the facts,'" says Ms. Fuller. "He told me that when he was producing Jaws, if he'd ever taken the time to read the book, he would have realized he had to create a mechanical shark. If he'd realized that, he never would have touched the project and never would have made the movie. So he went into it ignorant of how big the hurdle was that he had to overcome.
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"That was revelatory to me because I think a lot of times in life, we're in very difficult circumstances, whether personal or professional. And if you took the time to think about all the hurdles you have to get over, all the negatives, then you would never go forward. So there's no point in facing the facts."
Recovering her confidence took time, she says. Eventually, she felt that the experience was freeing, that she had a whole new canvas where she could paint a different picture. That way of thinking restored her confidence.
"Re-invention is never easy because, first of all, people are used to seeing you in a certain way," says Ms. Fuller. "And people in the career world do tend to put you in a box. If you've done newspapers, then you can only do newspapers; if you've done magazines, then you can only do magazines. You can't necessarily cross over into the online world.
"When I wanted to move online, I had to prove that I could do online. So I actually took time to blog for almost a year to get the feel of it, but also so that people in the online world could see that I could operate in that world, too. You have to jump in and do as much as you can. Or sometimes, in the corporate world, you have to go down a few rungs so that you get into a different area than you were before."
When it comes to juggling career and family, Ms. Fuller, a mother of four, is renowned for her opinion that women can have it all, as described in her 2006 book, The Joys of Much Too Much.
"There's no such thing as balance," says Ms. Fuller. "Trying to balance equally is just a road to making yourself feel guilty all the time because it's an impossible task. There's just not enough time in a day. I cut back on sleep so I can spend time with my kids and family when I get home. I don't have spa days and lunches and dinners with the girls - like in Sex and the City, where the girls are always getting together. You can't do that - maybe once in a while. You have to prioritize."
Finding the right partner who cheers you on and wants to be your enabler is a critical part of her mantra.
"You have to really be partners otherwise you'll just end up fighting," says Ms. Fuller. "That's one of the most important decisions you'll ever make."