For Lucke, the move is a homecoming of sorts, as she previously worked for Quartz’s parent company, Atlantic Media, as vice president of marketing and strategic partnerships and for sister brand The Atlantic as associate publisher.
“Zazie has a talent, experience, and vision for taking sophisticated media brands to the global stage. That’s a rare combination, and makes her a perfect fit for Quartz,” said president and publisher Jay Lauf. “She knows how to deliver for clients, and I could not be more thrilled to be working with her again.”
Lucke returns at a time of tremendous revenue growth for Quartz. As of May, revenues have increased 121% from the same time period last year and 20% higher than revenues for all of 2015, say the publishers.
In her new role, effective yesterday, Lucke will oversee Quartz’s global marketing operation, which includes staff in New York, London, and San Francisco. There are additional sales operations in Chicago, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, bringing the combined sales and marketing team to a total of 70 staff globally. Quartz’s overall staff growth has been consistent since the company’s launch in the fall of 2012, bringing it to close to 200 full-time staff across its offices worldwide. While launching Quartz India in 2014 and Quartz Africa in 2015, the company quadrupled its London staff and plans to double its headcount in Hong Kong this year, says the company.
Lucke most recently led the marketing teams for Upworthy Media and Bloomberg Media, where she applied her expertise to building new solutions for global advertisers at the intersection of data and content. At Bloomberg she helped launch a slate of new brands across both traditional and emerging platforms, including Bloomberg Business, Bloomberg Politics and the program ‘With All Due Respect’. At Upworthy, Lucke drove efforts to bring the brand’s mission-based storytelling to advertisers through large-scale partnerships driven by social video.
In 2008, Lucke joined The Atlantic as the brand’s first leader of marketing and creative services efforts and played a critical role in transforming perception of the publication to a multi-platform, ideas-driven media powerhouse. She developed and launched The Atlantic’s ‘Native Solutions’ before native advertising had become ubiquitous in the industry lexicon. The publishers say that that paid off for the brand with a 400%+ increase in revenue from custom marketing and The Atlantic’s eventual turn to profitability.
In 2012, Lucke was promoted to run marketing and strategic partnerships for Atlantic Media. In this role, she was part of the team that created and grew Quartz into its initial incarnation in market and drove the successful launch.
Said Lucke, “I'm energized by Quartz’s explosion onto the global stage and its enviable combination of integrity, unmatched journalism, the social-savvy required for digital success, and the truly unique ideas and thinking that make it stand apart from the rest. Quartz adds distinct value to the media diet of many of the world's most influential people and that's something I’m deeply passionate about supporting.”
