About Me

Until September 2017, she was Editor in Chief of TIME, directing news and feature coverage across all U.S., European and Asian editions. Gibbs was named TIME’s 17th editor in September 2013, the first woman to hold the position, and remains an Editor at Large. Leading TIME through a period of media industry upheaval, she built the largest audience in its history, expanding its reach across platforms and reversing a seven year decline in revenue. Under her leadership, TIME accelerated its transformation from a weekly print magazine to a global, 24/7 digital news operation. She launched a documentary division, Red Border Films, as well as new products in photography, e-commerce, virtual reality (LIFE VR) and live events. TIME became one of the most read sources on Apple News and built more than 50 million followers across social channels. During her tenure, even as TIME’s print circulation remained strong, its digital audience more than doubled from 25 to 55 million, video streams passed one billion a year, and TIME won a primetime Emmy award for its two-part "A Year in Space" documentary, produced with PBS. In her final year at Time Inc., Gibbs also served as Editorial Director of the Time Inc. News Group, overseeing  multiplatform content for TIME, Money and Fortune.  

The empowerment of women and the importance of creating an inclusive workplace culture were priorities during her tenure, which saw the elevation of a record number of women into key leadership positions. Among her final editorial projects were Finding Home, a yearlong journey following the lives of three Syrian refugee women, and “Firsts,” a multimedia curation of profiles, videos and interviews with female pioneers, including Hillary Clinton, Nikki Haley, Oprah Winfrey, Aretha Franklin, Lena Waithe, Serena Williams, Gen. Lori Robinson and Madeleine Albright.

During her three decades at TIME, she covered four presidential campaigns and is author of more cover stories than any writer in TIME’s near-100 year history, including the black-bordered September 11 special issue, which won the National Magazine Award in 2002. In addition to breaking news coverage of major events, she explored the intersections of politics, policy and culture, whether the boundaries of bio-ethical research, the role of religion in public life, the tension between justice and mercy and most often, the very human nature of the American Presidency. Politico called her “The Poet Laureate of Presidents;” the Chicago Tribune named her one of the Top Ten Magazine writers in the country.  She has interviewed five U.S. presidents; numerous US political leaders including Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and John McCain, as well as Michelle Obama and Ivanka Trump; world leaders such as Shinzo Abe, Narendra Modi, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau and UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres; and business leaders like Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Sundar Pichai and Bill Gates.      Before joining the university, she was Editor in Chief of TIME, directing news and feature coverage across all U.S., European and Asian editions. Gibbs was named TIME’s 17th editor in September 2013, the first woman to hold the position, and remains an Editor at Large. Leading TIME through a period of media industry upheaval, she built the largest audience in its history, expanding its reach across platforms and reversing a seven year decline in revenue.  

During her three decades at TIME, she covered four presidential campaigns and is author of more cover stories than any writer in TIME’s near-100 year history, including the black-bordered September 11 special issue, which won the National Magazine Award in 2002.   

Her columns now appear in the Washington Post as well as TIME, and she has been a frequent guest on radio and TV news shows, including Meet the Press, CBS This Morning, PBS Newshour, Morning Joe, World News Tonight, This Week and the Today Show.  

 Gibbs is the co-author, with Michael Duffy, of two best-selling presidential histories, including The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity (2012), which spent 30 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. 

Sample public lectures and interviews

The Theodore H. White Lecture on Politics and the Press 2017(Video) or text

Harvard Kennedy School

Our tools, our brains, our souls: the transformations of technologyMaidment theater, Auckland, NZ July 30, 2015

The Presidents Club, Chautauqua Institution, August 24, 2012

“Apple C.E.O. Tim Cook Interview,”  Time 100 Summit, New York April 2019

“A Conversation with Justin Trudeau” Fortune Global Forum, Guangzhou, China Dec. 2017

“What if Privacy Becomes a Luxury Good? World Economic Forum, Davos, CH, Jan. 2017

Selected Articles (Since coming to HKS)

Washington Post

Opinion| How to promote trust in the 2020 electionOctober 14, 2020

Opinion | Forget swabs. We all need to take a character test. May 3, 2020

Opinion | On the coronavirus, caution is wise, but control is impossible March 11, 2020

Opinion | Becoming Trump is not the way to defeat himFeb. 10, 2020

Opinion | One-term Joe? Voters might like the sound of that. Dec. 13, 2019

Opinion | It’s how we treat other people’s children that matters Aug. 23, 2019

Opinion | After this political era, can Americans forgive each other? June 12, 2019

Opinion | How do we balance our shameless age with the zero-tolerance absolutes? March 11, 2019

LA Times

Op-Ed: What will it take to stand up again together? Start with accountability June 5, 2020

Time

The Numbers That Haunt Us During the Coronavirus Crisis | Time April 9, 2020

Why TIME Revisited 100 Women Who Made HistoryMarch 5, 2020

Joe Biden and the Hard Choices for Democrats in 2020 | TIME April 4, 2019

A Revolutionary Suggestion for Word of the Year: Listen December 18, 2018

The Only Way to Fight Hate | Time Nov. 1, 2018

Vote Like It Matters. Because Then It WillOct. 25, 2018

How The Media Can Help Rebuild Trust in America June 11, 2018

Gibbs was born and raised in New York City. She graduated from Yale in 1982,  summa cum laude, with honors in history, and has a degree in politics and philosophy from Oxford, where she was a Marshall scholar.  

She has twice served as the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton, teaching a seminar on politics and the press. In addition to the National Magazine Award, she is a recipient of the Matrix award, the Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York, Folio’s Top Women in Media, the Feature Award from the New York Press Club, the Sigma Delta Chi Magazine Writing Award and the Exceptional Merit Media award from the National Women’s Political Caucus. 

  Gibbs has lectured extensively on the press and the American presidency, including at the Bush, Reagan, Carter, Johnson and Truman libraries, the Aspen Institute, the Dallas World Affairs Club, the Commonwealth Club, the National Archives and Harvard Kennedy School. As the 2015 John F. Kennedy Fellow, sponsored by Fulbright New Zealand, she delivered a series of lectures across New Zealand that summer. She has interviewed leaders in technology, health and higher education at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and has lectured on Women and Leadership to both university and business audiences.  

Gibbs currently serves as co-chair of the Center for Communications Leadership and Policy at USC Annenberg; the President of the American Friends of New College, Oxford; a trustee of the Chautauqua Institution; a board member of the How Institute for Society; a board member of the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy; and an independent director of Column pbc, a public benefit corporation launched by Harvard students with a goal of providing sustainable revenue to local newspapers.