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BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, APRIL 20^th, 2018 (PRESS SEC) – St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, met today, Friday, April 20^th, 2018, in London, England with the new Publishing Director/Publisher at British Vogue, Vanessa Kingori, MBE.  Ms. Kingori is a Briton of Kittitian and Kenyan descent. 

She is the daughter of Mrs. Pat Richards-Leader, MBE, of Tabernacle Village, St. Kitts, who owns the Grange Nursing Home & Healthcare Facility in Ottley’s Village.  Mrs. Richards-Leader opened The Grange in 2000.

Vanessa Kingori was announced as the new publisher of British Vogue back in September 2017 and her appointment took effect in January 2018.  She is its first black publisher and also the first woman to hold that position at the prestigious magazine.            noting, “I, like many other Kittitians and Nevisians, have been watching your groundbreaking career with great interest since 2015 when youbecame the first female publisher of British GQ and the first black publisher at its parent company Condé Nast UK.”

Ms. Kingori was awarded as a Member of the Order of the Bri tis h Empire (MBE), for services to the media industry, in the Queen’s Birthday 2016

 

honours List.  Her mom was awarded as a Member of the Order of the British Empire that year for her “contribution to healthcare service.”

 

The influential publisher consistently credits her mother in media interviews, saying, for instance, that her MBE award in the Queen’s Birthday 2016 Honours List was “an especially big accolade for my mother who brought my sister and I up as a single mother working all the hours she could as an NHS [National Health Service] nurse.”

In a recent British Vogue article (March 19^th, 2018) titled “Career Girl: British Vogue Publisher, Vanessa Kingori,” she says her “proudest moment thus far” is “Whenever I make my family proud, so I think receiving my MBE was a super proud moment.”

Ms. Kingori adds, “Getting the job at Vogue was one of my proudest moments, particularly when Edward [Enninful, British Vogue’s newly appointed editor-in-chief] told me that I was the first woman to do the job, which I had no idea about.  I didn’t know that until it had all been confirmed.  A century of Vogue and no woman at the business helm, I still get a knot in my stomach every once in a while about that. Those are two of many [proudest moments].” http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/vanessa-kingori-vogue-interview

Prime Minister Harris also told Ms. Kingori today, “I wish you every success as you continue to make your family, friends and our Federation proud,” adding, “You can count on my Government’s unwavering support, and that of the Kittitian and Nevisian people.”