The youngest editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine shares how passion and a great mentor helped her go from studying ballet to running a major publication

Photo by Joe Tyler

• Dan Schawbel is a bestselling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and host of the "5 Questions with Dan Schawbel" podcast, where he interviews world-class humans by asking them just five questions in under 10 minutes. 
  
• He recently interviewed Jessica Pels, the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan.
  
• Pels said the biggest thing that she learned that allowed her to ascend to her current position at Cosmopolitan is "to lean on my passion."
  
• When asked for her best piece of career advice, she said "Apply for everything you're not qualified for."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Jessica Pels moved to New York City at age 14 to study ballet at the American Ballet Theatre. After earning her degree in film production at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Jessica held various editorial positions at The New Yorker, Vogue, Glamour, and Teen Vogue before becoming the digital director for Marie Claire magazine. 

She left the magazine to accept a similar role at Cosmopolitan, which eventually led to her becoming the youngest person in the history of the magazine to be the editor in chief at age 32. In her position, Jessica oversees the content and editorial operations for the magazine, web, social, video, and editorial innovation projects. See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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