Leventhal Takes Galotti’s Place as New Publisher of Vanity Fair

Ronald Galotti is out as publisher of Vanity Fair magazine and is being replaced by Kathy Neisloss Leventhal, the founding publisher of 2-year-old Allure magazine, Conde Nast Publications Inc. announced Monday.

Galotti’s departure after three years as publisher of Vanity Fair was unexpected. He had been viewed in magazine publishing circles as one of Conde Nast’s rising stars.

Conde Nast President Bernard Leser said Galotti had “resigned . . . to pursue other interests.”

Messages were left Monday for both Galotti and Leser, but the calls were not returned.

The magazine has run into turbulence since Editor Tina Brown moved last fall to the top editorial post at the New Yorker, another magazine owned by Conde Nast Chairman S. I. Newhouse Jr.

Leventhal, 37, has been publisher at Allure, a women’s beauty magazine. She got that job in March, 1990, a year before Allure’s launch.

She joined Conde Nast in 1983 as a member of the sales staff at Vanity Fair as it was being revived after 47 years of suspended publication.

She became ad director of the magazine two years later.