Steven Florio, 58; expanded Conde Nast empire

STEVEN FLORIO (Conde Nast Publications via AP)

NEW YORK - Steven T. Florio, a hard-driving executive who worked his way up the publishing ladder to lead the Conde Nast magazine empire, has died at age 58.

Mr. Florio died Thursday at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia of complications from an earlier heart attack, said Maurie Perl, a spokeswoman for Conde Nast Publications.

Mr. Florio was president and chief executive of Conde Nast through 2004, expanding it to the second-biggest magazine publisher in the country while many others were cutting staff and costs.

He managed 16 magazines aimed at well-to-do readers, selling advertising that appealed to their luxury tastes and reaching more than 70 million readers a month. "I was, after all, Steve Florio, the Godfather, the Samurai, the leader, the warrior," Mr. Florio wrote in a 2005 proposal for an autobiography that he decided not to publish.

Under him, Conde Nast included Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, as well as Glamour, Architectural Digest, Self, GQ, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Conde Nast Traveler, Allure, Wired, Lucky, and Teen Vogue.

New Yorker editor David Remnick said Mr. Florio was "remarkably effective" in using his big, warm personality to achieve his goals. "Steve was the antithesis of a business school-minted android," Remnick said.

Born in the New York borough of Queens, Mr. Florio graduated from New York University with a business degree in 1971.

"I was not short on nerve or ego, and I carried a heavy chip on my shoulder," he wrote in the book proposal. "They'll bury me with it, too. I was there to get the job done."

He started his career at Esquire, then became publisher of GQ. Mr. Florio was named president of The New Yorker in 1985, when the magazine was purchased by Advance Publications, the Conde Nast parent company owned by the Newhouse family.