"We're still investing heavily despite what's going on in the market," she says. "The month before I started we relaunched Vogue. Glamour relaunched in the last two weeks and traffic has already gone 30%. I'm beginning to feel like I'll be the only person left working at a company that's still investing."

Anthony is doubly blessed that the UK operation has such faith in online, following last month's widespread lay-offs across CondéNet in the US and the closure earlier this year of teen social network Filp.com. "We operate entirely independently from the US and here in the UK we're not making any cuts," she says. "In fact, CondéNet UK is in launch mode for 2009."

A digital media veteran and one of the UK's best-known industry faces, Anthony has a huge job on her hands over the coming year. It's down to her to implement the digital strategy for Condé Nast's non-US internet businesses as mapped out by Stefano Maruzzi, president of CondéNet International (nma 5 June). This is to develop central designs, platforms and ad models in order to roll out sites internationally for local implementation.

"The nine markets we have cover a huge breadth of maturity and development, and the idea of an international group is very new to Condé Nast," says Anthony. "My first goal is to drive all markets to the same base level. It's extraordinarily different. Businesses have grown organically and very rarely, if ever, communicate across international territories. But it's already starting to happen. We had Style and Men's Style in Italy, and have rolled out Men's Style in France and Spain with the same look and feel but with local editors and writers. The template works well. In June Vogue rolled out in the UK and Russia, which uses a lot of translated UK content." On the day we spoke, Russia.fr was being launched.

The advantages of a standardised global approach to online publishing are obvious for both publisher and advertisers, even if this is still rare. As readers of brands such as Vogue become increasingly international, it enables CondéNet to offer standardised ad units, for example. In fact, it's meeting the advertisers that has been one of the biggest, and most pleasurable, surprises for Anthony in her new role.

"What really surprised me were the luxury brand advertisers, after being in an environment at MSN where it was challenging to get them on board," she says. "Here you have Chanel, Prada, YSL — an amazing quality of brands. They all want their ads to go in the Vogue magazine. Prada, for example, likes to be on the first three pages, and it's taking that mindset online."

Of course, talk to any senior executive at a glossy magazine publisher and they'll agree print is still king for luxury advertisers. Anthony agrees they "still don't embrace the internet as much as they should" and that this extends to traditional marketers at many big brands.

"I went to a Marketing Society conference recently and it was a fascinating anthropological view. It was all men in grey suits and some of the questions being asked around digital were so depressing. They were so uninformed.

"I want to get to a place where it's categorically better to go with our products online rather than TV. Today it's an emotional attachment to the magazine brands that drives brands to advertise on their websites," she adds.

Luckily education around digital advertising has been the bedrock of Anthony's career. Following an initial baptism of fire at publisher VNU, where she found herself with a team of nine, five websites and a multi-million-pound budget at the age of 27, she joined MSN in 2001. Mirroring her CondéNet experience today, this was when "it was pouring money in while everyone else was pulling it out". As Microsoft scrabbled to keep up with its realisation the internet wasn't going away and it needed to make money out of it, it began its transformation into an advertising business. Anthony was one of the first of a wave of trade marketers brought in to deliver this.

"It was like joining a start-up. We were committed to building the industry, driving standards and working with the IAB. We were the first to ban pop-ups," she says. "I loved that it felt like we helped shape the industry."

With the IAB tracking growth consistently at 20-30% a quarter for some time, what state does Anthony believe the industry she helped to build is in? "It's gone through its teenage years and is hitting its early-20s. It feels as if it's a solid player in the media industry. Where it hasn't changed is sometimes we still suffer from the hype we delivered before the dotcom bust. The hype is the stuff the more senior brand managers remember and we've spent the last ten years trying to correct and explain ourselves. We still have a way to go."

Anthony hopes CondéNet's contribution to this will be the delivery of solid, global web properties attracting big-spend advertisers with the quality of its products. With the launch of Wired UK imminent, the business isn't going to be slowing down anytime soon. It helps that Condé Nast has deep pockets, of course, but the only way online publishers will come through the tough economic times ahead is to keep up the momentum, Anthony believes.

"Despite what's going on, we're continuing to refresh our properties," she says. "Anyone that just lets their business stagnate over the next year will be in trouble."

Amanda Anthony Marketing director, CondéNet International

37 BSc in Mathematical Sciences, London School of Economics

1994-95 Marketing assistant, BusinessAge

1995-99 Marketing manager, VNU Business Publications

1999-2001 Head of marketing, VNUNet

2001-06 Digital marketing manager, MSN UK

2006-08 Head of partner engagement, EMEA, Americas and Greater Asia, Microsoft Advertising