Adam Baidawi Named GQ’s Chief Editor

Adam Baidawi was appointed global editorial director of GQ on Tuesday, effective immediately. He replaces Will Welch, who served as the title’s chief editor for just over five years before departing earlier this month to work for musician and designer Pharrell Williams in Paris.

The changing of the guard is the latest shakeup at publisher Condé Nast, which has appointed a new generation of editors, often from within, at brands from Vogue to Vanity Fair, as it restructures its operations amid structural shifts in the media landscape.

Baidawi, who is Iraqi-Australian and was previously GQ’s deputy global editorial director and head of editorial content of British GQ, was instrumental in growing the brand’s tentpole events, including Heroes and Men of the Year. He will be moving from London to New York to serve in his new position. His first print edition of GQ will be published in September 2026. (He will also oversee Pitchfork, which was folded into GQ in 2024 and run by head of editorial content Mano Sundaresan).

Baidawi aims to return GQ “to its rightful place as the North Star of masculinity” and make it “more participatory in the cultural and political debates of our time,” he told The New York Times. “I’m curious to propose a version of masculinity that is yes, progressive, yes, modern, but is also sexier and cooler and more aspirational and more desirable than some of the nihilism or cruelty or vanity that we see out there.”

“Adam makes perfect sense to lead GQ because he’s a writer and journalist first — a cultural thinker at a time when the culture needs to be thought through, and even interrogated a little,” Condé Nast chief content officer Anna Wintour said in a statement.

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GQ Global Editorial Director Will Welch to Exit

Welch was credited with redefining a new progressive vision of masculinity at the men’s magazine, which he joined in 2007.