Women’s Health Founder Tina Johnson To Head Up espnW

espnW, ESPN’s new content and digital business for women, has appointed Women’s Health founding editor-in-chief, Tina Johnson, as editor-in-chief. In addition, ESPN’s high school female athlete magazine and digital business, ESPN RISE for Girls, has named former Sports Illustrated senior editor, Aimee Crawford, as its editor-in-chief.

Both Tina and Aimee bring tremendous experience and insight to their respective roles,” says Laura Gentile, VP espnW and ESPN RISE digital and publishing. “Tina has a compelling content vision for espnW to reach active, sports-minded women, and has experience building new multimedia businesses. Aimee has been in the sports space her entire career and brings a wealth of knowledge and creativity to this role. We are excited to have them join our team.”

Johnson, an established brand architect with a successful track record of multimedia launches, will set the editorial direction for all of espnW’s digital content offerings including espnW.com and its mobile and social media platforms. She was named executive editor for Teen People in 2001 capping an almost 20-year career at Time Inc. In 2004, she was founding editor-in-chief of Women’s Health. She also worked at Hearst Magazines and Reader’s Digest, and has a background in reporting for People as well as internationally. Johnson will take her new position immediately.

Crawford’s sports journalism background includes more than eight years (2002-10) of writing and editorial experience at Sports Illustrated for Kids, Sports Illustrated and SI.com, to ESPN RISE for Girls (published five times per year) and all digital content aimed at high school girls. At SI.com, she served as assistant managing editor (2002-05) before taking the senior editor role at Sports Illustrated (2005-09). Previously, she was deputy managing editor at MLB.com (2001-02) and held a variety of editorial posts at CNN/SI (1999-2001) and The Sporting News (1996-99). She will begin her new duties February 21.

Both Johnson and Crawford will work in ESPN’s New York office until a move later in the year to ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, CT.