Who

Levy is the founder of DailyCandy, the chick e-newsletter with the editorial voice of an overly enthusiastic sorority girl. The company was sold to Comcast in August of 2008.

Backstory

Raised on the Upper East Side, Levy had a privileged childhood: Her father, Peter A. Levy, was a highly respected partner at Goldman Sachs before leaving to launch a hedge fund called Sage Capital; her grandfather was Gus Levy, the legendary Goldman leader in the 1960s and '70s who mentored the likes of Bob Rubin.

Dany graduated from Brown in 1995 and started her career covering beauty and fashion for New York, later joining Self as beauty editor before moving to Condé Nast to work on the prototype of Lucky. It was while working on the launch of the new shopping mag in 2000 that, inspired by the daily email being sent out by TheStreet.com, Levy came up with the idea of a style e-newsletter. She pitched the idea to her Condé bosses; when they passed, she headed off to do it on her own. On March 6, 2000, she sent out her first email, distributing it to 700 friends and contacts in the media industry. The chirpy missives quickly developed a cult following and a year later she gathered together $250,000 from her family to support the business.

In 2003, she sold a majority stake in DailyCandy to MTV co-founder and new media investor Bob Pittman for $3.5 million. 

Of note

DailyCandy has grown leaps and bounds over the past few years. When Pittman acquired the site, it had about 250,000 subscribers. These days 2.5 million people receive one of the DailyCandy's 16 newsletters, more than 30 people are on staff, and DailyCandy reportedly generated $20 million in revenue in 2007. What hasn't changed, though, is the site's formula—Candace Bushnell-esque editorial about sample sales, restaurant openings, and the hottest lipstick—in other words the sort of light, fluffy copy that encourages women to buy and advertisers to spend.

But while growth has certainly been substantial, there's been mounting evidence that the savviest women have moved on since DailyCandy's peak several years ago. When Pittman boldly announced plans in 2006 to put the company on the auction block for more than $100 million, there were no takers (although he did manage to recruit another fund to invest, in a transaction that valued the company at $130 million). Nonetheless, Levy and Pittman managed to make a comfy exit in August of 2008 when the cable giant Comcast stepped forward with a $125 million offer to buy DailyCandy.

In print

DailyCandy's first book, Daily Candy: A-Z: An Insider's Guide to the Sweet Life, was published in 2006.

Personal

Levy is single and lives in the Village.