• by Sara Guaglione , February 24, 2016

Nilou Motamed was named editor of Time Inc.’s Food & Wine on Tuesday, three months after Dana Cowin announced her resignation.

Motamed will start on March 14, and the July issue will be the first under her leadership. She told The New York Times that her focus for Food & Wine will be to expand the brand.

“There has never been a better time for food, what with social media, the way people travel for food and all the elements of the Food & Wine lifestyle,” she said.

As editor, Motamed will manage the brand’s franchises and partnerships, including Best New Chefs and millennial food site FWx. She will work closely with publisher Christina Grdovic to help guide Food & Wine’s TV partnerships, including Bravo’s “Top Chef,” and the brand’s event series, anchored by Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.

Time Inc. noted that Motamed will work in tandem with sales and marketing to offer “creative solutions” to the company’s advertising partners and help strengthen Food & Wine’s digital, video and television footprint.

Born in Iran and raised in Paris and New York, Motamed lives in Brooklyn with her husband. She is fluent in four languages.

Cowin, who was the editor of Food & Wine for 21 years, will become the Chief Creative Officer of Chefs Club International, which has a strategic partnership with Food & Wine.

Motamed was previously editor-in-chief of Epicurious, where she oversaw a top-to-bottom rebranding and redesign of the site before it was reorganized and combined with Bon Appétit. She was then director of inspiration at Conrad Hotels & Resorts and spent more than a decade at Food & Wine’s sister title, Travel + Leisure, where she was features director and senior correspondent.