OK! Georgia Magazine New Editor Appointed
Nino Jibladze has joined the OK! Georgia magazine team as Editor in Chief, George Sharashidze, OK! Georgia publisher, announced at hotel The Terrace, in Tbilisi on Monday.
Jibladze, the Vice President and Head of the Marketing and PR Department at Gulf Georgia, is to combine her current job with the post of editor of the OK! Magazine from October 1, replacing Olga Babluani.
Aside from holding an executive position at Gulf, Jibladze has a background in journalism and writing, with her contemporary fiction novels: Leaving (2003), Love in America (2005), and Kaleidoscope (2007) well-known and loved by Georgian readers.
“I’m delighted that from October 1, OK! Magazine will have such a high caliber, experienced professional as Nino Jibladze,” Sharashidze stated. “I would like to thank Nino for accepting our proposal and I’m sure she’ll make the image OK! Magazine has gained through its three years of presence on the Georgian market ever stronger, and with her new ideas, creativity and new marketing projects, will bring OK! Magazine to a new stage,” he said.
“Together with Nino, we’ll be able to strengthen our strategy which is OK! First and the Best, and attempt to make the magazine not only the most popular and best-selling one, but also transform it into a real Lovemark,” George Sharashidze noted.
Olga Baluani, previous editor of OK! Magazine, thanked the OK! team for their cooperation, congratulated Jibladze, and expressed her hope of continuing her collaboration with OK! Georgia.
“I would like to thank Olga, who was an exceptional editor of OK! and with whom we made many interesting projects,” Sharashidze said, adding that he, too, hopes Babluani will continue cooperation with OK! Georgia.
Nino Jibladze will hold individual meetings with the OK! magazine team to familiarize herself with the details of the magazine, and its online and marketing projects.
“When I was offered the position as editor, I thought about it carefully as I had no previous experience in such a responsible position within printed media, but then, today, managerial practice across various spheres doesn’t differ much, and so I agreed to take on the role with great pleasure and even greater motivation. OK! Magazine is very popular in Georgia and if we work on strengthening its image, I will do all I can to make it stronger, better, and even more beautiful,” Jibladze said.
“As in all other countries around the world, OK! has a massive readership in Georgia; it’s a magazine that you can read both at home and in the office, or out and about, with an audience which is mixed and varied, every month waiting for the next issue to come out. I’ll be looking more into the details shortly,” she said.
We ask her how she plans to combine the new job with her current responsibilities at Gulf. “I don’t think I’ll have any problems combining the two jobs. I’ve done it before and I’m not afraid of multi-tasking,” she answers with confidence. “Like most people these days, for me time is an issue, but I have also gained experience in good time management”.
We ask her about her future plans. “I won’t talk too much about my plans just yet, but I hope to be able to bring new life to the magazine, even if it’s a small touch, still it’s important to me. Time seems to fly so fast and trends are changing so rapidly, but we at OK! will be following them, making sure all the best materials are in OK! Magazine. I’m not a person who focuses on today’s tendencies alone: I respect classics, too, and I think there are themes that always exist, that are eternal, which need to be seen in a fresh way, adapted to the time we’re living in,” she said.
For more than two decades, OK! Magazine has been at the heart of the celebrity market, widely regarded as a publishing phenomenon, read by around 1.4 million people each week in the UK alone.
Launched back in 1993, OK! is now worldwide, with 17 international editions in Bulgaria, China, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Japan, Russia, UK, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Pakistan, Romania, and more. Georgia was added to that substantial list in 2014.
Nino Gugunishvili