Cindi Leive’s departure delayed as successor search lingers on

The rumor inside Condé Nast is that the long and drawn-out search for a successor to Cindi Leive to take the helm of Glamour is looking outside the ranks of traditional magazine editors to try to ­add more digital clout to the title.

And that Leive, as the search drags on, has been asked to delay her departure. Sources say her last day is now scheduled to be Jan. 19.

“Glamour has a problem on a global basis,” said one source, in part because beauty advertisers are looking to digital. “Goop and Refinery29 have stolen bits and pieces of the business.”

One person Condé Nast reached out to ­was the former editorial director of Refinery29, Lea Goldman, but nothing came of the overture.

Goldman, currently the editor-in-chief of the TV network Lifetime, had earlier in her career been an executive editor at Marie Claire. (Of course, Refinery29 is not immune to ad pressures either; ­it recently announced it was eliminating 34 staffers from its 400-person workforce.)

Glamour was once the most ­or second-most profitable magazine in the Condé Nast empire, but has fallen back after five years of advertising declines.

Leive announced her departure in early September only days after Graydon Carter said he was leaving Vanity Fair.

The Vanity Fair search, with a big assist from The New Yorker’s top editor David Remnick, wrapped up in November, and Radhika Jones started on Dec. ­11, with Carter packing up ­and leaving on Dec. ­13.

Yet the search for Leive’s successor drags on. ­

The in-house candidate is said to be Teen Vogue editor Elaine Welteroth, who took the publication ­all-digital.

If ­an inside candidate was going to be handed the job, presumably that would have happened already. The other rumor making the rounds is that the candidate has been picked but is under contract — and the current employer won’t release the chosen candidate from the contract early.

And, of course, anyone who lands the job must navigate a relationship with the always-formidable Anna Wintour, who is “the real boss.”