Monday, Jan. 12, 1981
If there is any truth to the old maxim that there is a direct correlation between musical virtuosity and mathematical wizardry, then retiring Time Inc. Group Vice President, Magazines, Arthur Keylor is a case in point. He came to this company 32 years ago as a young man with a horn (best schoolboy trumpet player in New England) and a Harvard Business School degree. He has been making beautiful music ever since his first days in the comptroller's department, where, he recalls, "I had little knowledge of accounting, but there I was closing the books."
Last week he concluded on a high note eight years as head of Time Inc.'s magazine division. Under his aegis that segment of the company experienced remarkable growth. MONEY, PEOPLE and DISCOVER were launched, LIFE was reborn, and Time Inc.'s magazine revenues tripled, to $1 billion. Of those achievements, Keylor is proudest of the successful birth of PEOPLE, which now has a circulation of 2.3 million. Says he: "When we set out to launch PEOPLE nothing like it had ever been tried before. You get a much greater sense of pride when you're breaking new ground the whole way."
Talented people and the quality of their work are, according to Keylor, the two essential ingredients of a successful magazine. That, in essence, could be a self-portrait. Beyond the prodigious contributions he has made as one of the major personalities in the publishing industry, he has affected all of us who have worked alongside him. The force of his unbounded enthusiasm and energy and his total professionalism have become something of an in-house legend. And he brought these same qualities not only to his job but to such avidly pursued avocations as golf and skiing, at which he excels.
Keylor's successor is Kelso F. Sutton--not much of a musician but a tested manager. Sutton, who came to Time Inc. in 1961 after graduating from Harvard, served as TIME general manager before becoming a Time Inc. vice president and the corporate circulation director in 1972 and publisher of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED in 1978. He is committed to maintaining Arthur Keylor's heady pace. Citing his former boss's role as a leader in one of the country's "few remaining growth industries," Sutton says, "we intend to stay well ahead of the pack."
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