), is an author, speaker, former publisher and former advertising director. She was the first female publisher of a major national magazine. She became president, publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 American Home

The American Home

The American Home was a monthly magazine published in the United States from 1928 to 1977. Its subjects included domestic architecture, interior design, landscape design, and gardening....

and the American Home Publishing Company in 1975.

Throughout her career, Sanford had publisher and director stints at several national magazines. She eventually focused her work on aging, which includes the publication of her collection of essays Look For the Moon in the Morning.

In 2010 she published a memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

, Pure Moxie

Pure Moxie

Pure Moxie is a memoir by Leda Sanford, the first female publisher of a major national magazine. The memoir, self-published in 2010 by iUniverse, highlights Sanford's career in magazine publishing...

, which focuses on her professional career.

Professional career

When Sanford became president of the American Home Publishing Company, the company had recently been acquired by the Charter Company

Charter Company

The Charter Company of Jacksonville, Florida was a conglomerate with more than 180 subsidiaries that was in the Fortune 500 for 11 years beginning in 1974 and ranked 61st in 1984 before it sought bankruptcy protection in late 1984 and spiraled into obscurity....

, headed by Raymond K. Mason

Raymond K. Mason

Raymond K. Mason has been an American business leader for nearly sixty years, almost 40 as head of the Charter Company in Jacksonville, Florida. Charter was in the Fortune 500 for 11 years beginning in 1974 and ranked 61st in 1984.-Personal life:...

. New York Times columnist

Columnist

A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....

 Philip H. Dougherty

Philip H. Dougherty

Philip H. Dougherty was an American journalist who covered advertising for the New York Times from 1966 until his death. He was posthumously elected to the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1990, where he was described as "the most influential writer on advertising throughout his 22 years." He died in...

reported in his “Advertising” column that Sanford had little experience in magazine publishing

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

.
Before her American Home installation, Sanford had been a design major at the Fashion Institutive of Technology.
She had served as editor of the trade publication

Trade journal

A trade magazine, also called a professional magazine, is a magazine published with the intention of target marketing to a specific industry or type of trade. The collective term for this area of publishing is the trade press....

 Teens & Boys Outfitter for three years and also was editor of the publication Men’s Wear for three years.

At American Home, Sanford led a controversial

Controversy

Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...

 feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

-driven repositioning.
Sanford replaced roughly half of the American Home staff (newspapers said she had started to “clean house”).
The goal was to appeal to newly liberated women and save the magazine, which the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

 reported as “financially ailing.”

American Home reported slight gains in 1976, but in 1977 the Charter Company announced the magazine would be combined into its magazine Redbook

Redbook

Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...

.

In March 1978 Sanford joined ‘’Chief Executive Magazine’’ magazine as associate publisher and editor.

Sanford became publisher and editor-in-chief of entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 Jeno Paulucci’s

Jeno Paulucci

Jeno F. Paulucci was an American businessman and entrepreneur famous for starting over seventy companies during his long career. Paulucci's most well-known ventures included his frozen food company, Michelina's Inc., and food products such as Jeno's Pizza Rolls and the Chun King line of Chinese food...

 magazine for Italian-Americans, Attenzione, in 1979.
The magazine was sold to Adam Publications in 1982, after Sanford made an unsuccessful attempt to raise money to buy the magazine herself.

She was appointed to publisher of Bon Appetit

Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit describes itself as "a food and entertaining magazine" and is published monthly. Named after the French phrase for "Enjoy your meal", it was started by M. Frank Jones in Kansas City in 1956...

 magazine in May 1982. It was a short stint, and Sanford resigned from her position in March 1983.

In 1983 Sanford was appointed editorial director of the new magazine Living Anew — The Magazine for Living on your Own.

In 1986 Sanford became publisher of the U.S. edition of FMR magazine, Italian publisher Franco Maria Ricci's

Franco Maria Ricci

Franco Maria Ricci is an Italian publisher. Among his publications is FMR, an art magazine published six times yearly in Italian, English, German, French and Spanish, based in Milan, Italy...

 upscale art and culture review.

In March 1990 she became advertising director of Maturity Magazines Group, the New York office of Modern Maturity. In 2002, the company’s bi-monthly magazine Modern Maturity was renamed AARP The Magazine.

Keeping her focus on the aging, she spent nine years (beginning in 1992) as vice president and senior editorial director of the targeted marketing division at the Age Wave Communications Corporation in Emeryville, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Sanford was involved in the creation of the magazine “Get Up and Go!” The publication's target audience, women aged 40 to 50, was part of company’s focus on how the boomer wave will change aging in America.