22 April 2025

A century of stories: Former CEO Chris Llewellyn’s reflects on his journey with FIPP

On May 4^th 1987 I walked into the foyer of the Intercontinental Hotel then situated on Rue de Rivoli in the heart of Paris. I was about to attend my first ever FIPP Congress. I was the Group Research Director for my company, Emap of the UK. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but for the next two days I was spellbound. So many stories to hear, so many ideas to steal! And, it must be said, a great deal of fun as I connected with like-minded delegates at the many social events surrounding the Congress.

I now realise that this was the moment that made me want to work internationally, and happily the opportunities fell that way for me. Six years in Paris as Directeur General Emap France, 10 years building an international network of licenses and subsidiaries, and then eight years of running FIPP. I was truly blessed.

After Paris I attended the bi-annual Congresses regularly and what events they were. In Orlando, Tokyo, Amsterdam, the programmes were fascinating and the experiences unforgettable. Crucially, I was learning so much from people who were launching their magazine brands all over the world and getting to meet and talk directly with them. George Green of Hearst was taking Cosmopolitan everywhere, Henry Marks of Playboy was wonderfully candid and both ended up helping me so much personally. The big trigger for me was a presentation by National Geographic in Amsterdam’s Congress in 1995 who walked through how their Joint Venture in Japan had been realised and proved an inspiration for me to look at the international potential of Emap’s brands. By 1999 we had a certain candidate in the shape of FHM, a runaway success that was essentially the male equivalent of a Cosmopolitan.

As luck would have it, 1999 saw the FIPP Congress in Hamburg, and the Chairman was the formidable Axel Ganz, CEO of Prisma Presse, the G+J subsidiary in France. He and FIPP’s then CEO Per Mortensen invited me to join the Board of FIPP and I was honoured to do so. That Hamburg Congress was a fabulous launch-pad for so many magazines, but it was also something of a watershed moment. During the following decade we had two industry narratives developing. For the international magazine world it was a golden age. Hundreds of cross-border deals were done. Brands such as FHM, Maxim, Men’s Health, Marie Claire, Elle, Shape, Glamour, Hola, Top Gear were launching everywhere. The FIPP Congresses in the early 2000’s Rio de Janeiro/Buenos Aries, Paris, New York, Beijing and London became market-places, and such was the demand that FIPP had to also launch an annual Worldwide Magazine Marketplace simply to accommodate the demand for more business meeting opportunities. But there was another parallel story emerging – the spectre of the digital world.

In New York in 2005 at the Congress, the CEO of Time Inc, Don Logan, spelt out the dilemma magazine groups were facing. To invest in more magazines that would, by and large, guarantee a great return, or keep throwing money into a digital black- hole where nothing, it seemed, escaped. From the vantage point of 2025 we can see how that played out, and the magazine industry ever since has been playing that existential Darwinian game of change and adaption to survive.

Logging the industry changes from this point really became a critical part of FIPP’s remit. FIPP itself also had to change. Don Kummerfeld was a brilliant leader of the organisation during the early 2000’s but, not getting any younger, he recognised it was time to hand over. In 2009 I got the gig as FIPP’s CEO. In the next eight years I had the most wonderful time. But why shouldn’t I? I was surrounded by great staff-like Helen Bland, Claire Jones, Cobus Heyl, Amy Duffin, and could call on the wise counsel of my Chairmen – Aroon Purie of the India Today Group, David Hill of IDG, Fabrizio D’Angelo of Mondadori, Duncan Edwards of Hearst, and my sharp-eyed Treasurer Erwin Reisch of the B2B Gentner Verlag in Germany.

The Congresses that I was responsible for had an important role to play in examining, explaining and ultimately encouraging the world’s magazine companies to embrace change.

FIPP went to India for the first time by holding a Congress in New Delhi in2011. In 2013 the venue was Rome which had held the second ever Congress back in 1926. In 2015 we went to Canada for the first time and found that the reputation for the people’s friendliness was so well-founded. Finally, for me in 2017 a return to London where I handed over to the young (well, younger than me) and extremely knowledgeable James Hewes.

At all of these Congresses we saw so many presentations of how magazines were adapting to the new paradigms. We even coined the term ‘magazine media’ to more fully reflect that magazine brands were much more than ink printed on paper. One of our standard presentations was the unveiling of the Innovations in Magazine Media Reports that our inciteful and expert collaborators Juan Senor and John Wilpers were responsible for. This annual Report was a collection of case studies and an examination of emerging new trends, and while sometimes wrong about likely impacts (that’s the nature of forecasting), it has proven to be remarkably prescient too. FIPP was writing about the use of AI in creating content more than a decade ago for example.

I mentioned earlier that my first FIPP Congress in Paris had many social events around it. These were so important to allow delegates to meet and mingle. It’s where business was done and friendships forged. The FIPP social events were just terrific. I’ll always remember a jaw-dropping show-stopping performance by probably the world’s biggest entertainer at that time, Shah Rukh Khan at the opening ceremony in New Delhi; the organised visit to Niagara Falls; the taiko drumming and Sumo wrestlers in Tokyo, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra performance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. All so special. As is FIPP. Here’s to the next 100 years.

The FIPP World Media Congress takes place in Madrid, Spain, from 21-23 October 2025.

This event will bring together media professionals from across the globe for three days of insightful discussions, keynote presentations, workshops, and unparalleled networking opportunities. Whether you’re a seasoned industry leader or a rising innovator, the FIPP Congress promises to be an unforgettable gathering that will shape the future of media. Book now with the Pre Agenda Offer to save 650EUR from final rates.