Levien was born Meredith Kopit and raised in metropolitan Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Carole and Marvin Kopit. She has one sister, Barbara. She graduated from the University of Virginia where she majored in rhetoric and worked at the college newspaper, The Cavalier Daily.
Career
After school, she worked at The Advisory Board Company, a think tank founded by David G. Bradley and then for the digital agency i33/AppNet. After Bradley bought Atlantic Media, he recruited her to join the company in 2003 as an ad director. She worked her way up to associate publisher and in 2006 became the inaugural publisher of Atlantic Media's magazine 02138. In April 2008, she joined Forbes Media where she ran the Forbes Life Magazine. After stemming losses by focusing on the digital side of the magazine, C.E.O. Tim Forbes appointed her group publisher. She also introduced programmatic buying and "Brandvoice" which allows advertisers to create their own content under the Forbes logo. This new method of advertising, denominated as native advertising, has been criticized for blurring the line between editorial and advertising. In 2012, she was named chief revenue officer at Forbes Media. In July 2013, she was appointed head of advertising at The New York Times Company by C.E.O. Mark Thompson. Levien refocused The New York Times toward digital content and sales, hiring 80 new employees with internet skills and offered severance packages to 40 older employees. She again introduced native advertising under the name "Paid Posts" to increase advertising revenue; working with Netflix, Chevron, Dell, MetLife, and others. In April 2015, she was elevated to chief revenue officer of The Times, in charge of all advertising both print and digital. Levien was brought in to help to stem the decline in advertising revenues. Levien has said that video is the next big step for newspapers and has worked to include more video content. In June 2017, Kopit was promoted to chief operating officer of the New York Times. In July 2020, Levien was named chief executive of The New York Times Company.
