Who

The former Anna Wintour protégé and ex-editor of Harper's Bazaar now oversees style coverage for Time.

Backstory

Betts didn't waste any time climbing the fashion media ladder. After graduating from Princeton, she moved to Paris, interning briefly at the International Herald Tribune before landing a reporting gig at WWD's Paris bureau. A protégée of John Fairchild, she was promoted to bureau chief by the age of 27. Two years later she was summoned to New York by Anna Wintour, who named her Vogue's fashion news editor.

Despite some early stumbling blocks (she says she cried in her little office for the first three months because no one would talk to her) Betts quickly became a hot commodity at Condé Nast and one of Wintour's most trusted lieutenants, not to mention the ice queen's oft-speculated heir apparent. But when it became clear that any succession was a long way off (and when Wintour found a new BFF in the office, Plum Sykes), Betts made her escape plan. After dismissing two offers from Condé Nast (Details and Mademoiselle) she went after the editorship of Harper's Bazaar, which was vacant following the death of Liz Tilberis. Betts' strategy: She sent Hearst's Cathie Black a mock magazine while on maternity leave from Vogue. The move worked: The 35-year old new mother took over the title in 1999, becoming the youngest-ever editor of a fashion book.

Betts quickly set about giving Harper's a complete overhaul, but her more austere version wasn't a hit. When subscribers protested and advertisers threatened to depart, Betts was fired after just two years. (She was replaced by Glenda Bailey.) In 2003, she became an editor-at-large at Time, where she's responsible for the Style & Design supplement. The job is no great shakes; it's a quarterly and written mostly by interns and a junior reporter. But it's a comfy place to hang out until a bigger and more high-profile editorship comes along.

Personal

She's married to freelance journalist and author Chip Brown. They live with their two children, Oliver and India, in a Tribeca apartment bought for $687,000 in 1999.

True story

Earning her stripes as a true fashion Nazi, in 2000 Betts yanked a Patrick Demarchelier-shot Harper's Bazaar cover featuring Renee Zellweger, because the actress was still carrying some Bridget Jones poundage.