Shattering the Glass Ceiling, Redux: How Catherine Levene Went From an Art Startup to Running One of America’s Top Media Companies

The art collector and media guru charts her path toward a powerhouse career.

Art collector and media executive Catherine Levene.

Welcome to Shattering the Glass Ceiling, a podcast from the team at the Art Angle where we speak to boundary-breaking women in the art world and beyond about how art has shaped their lives and careers.

In case you missed it, we wanted to make sure our listeners had a chance to check out a very special new podcast miniseries we’ve rolled out. It’s called Shattering the Glass Ceiling, and it’s dedicated to spotlighting boundary-breaking women in the art world (and beyond) who have built extraordinary careers around—and inspired by—art.

Today, we’ll be re-airing an episode of the series that is of special significance to our host and editor in chief Andrew Goldstein, because it’s an interview with the art collector Catherine Levene, whose day job is running the megawatt Meredith media company, publisher of such titles as People magazine, Travel and Leisure, Entertainment Weekly, and many others. Before that, however, she was the co-founder and CEO of Artspace, the online art marketplace startup, where, for years, Goldstein was the editor-in-chief—meaning, yes, she was his boss.

Here, in the following episode, Artnet News’s senior writer Sarah Cascone talks to Catherine about how she started collecting art, her road to Meredith, and why powerful women leaders in the workplace are so important.

Check out the other episodes in the miniseries, which features powerhouse art dealer Mariane Ibrahim; author of Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto and the forthcoming BLACK MEME Legacy Russell; and curator Lauren Haynes, who just took up a new post at Duke’s Nasher Museum.