Miroslava Duma may be one of the world’s biggest street style stars, but the petite Russian is also one of the digital world’s most innovative leaders. Duma is the founder of digital publication Buro 24/7 and has now set her sights on expanding the enterprise (and her skillset) into the wider world of start-ups.
The original Russia-based Buro 24/7 was a leader in the digital publishing world – the 2011 launch covered fashion, beauty, art, and travel, and remains ranked second behind ELLE Russia with 4.9 million visits per month in Russia alone. This places it ahead of Glamour Russia, Russian Vogue and Russian business news channel RBC. Now, the empire’s global expansion (which already includes an Australian edition) continues with Duma confirming to Business of Fashion that more international additions are in the pipeline. Ten new region-specific sites are expected to be developed for Buro 24/7 shortly.
What has led to the success of Buro 24/7 so far? For Duma, it was embracing online as the future: “I quickly realised that the future was digital and that there was a gap. So I created one destination that had the trust and curation of these big legacy brands – but with the pace and virality of social media,” she says.
What’s also on the horizon for the digital innovator? Tech investment to accompany a publishing empire. Says BOF: “Duma is launching a tech initiative aimed at finding and supporting young start-ups, tech platforms and programmers, linking Buro with Skolkovo – a state-backed Silicon Valley-like tech hub in Russia – and the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF), a Russian venture capital fund established by the Agency for Strategic Initiative, which is supported by President Putin. The initiative will launch early next year.”
Image: @miraduma
