After a brief spell in local newspapers and at
Melody Maker magazine, McIlheney was appointed editor of
Smash Hits in 1986, seeing its circulation double to 800,000 during his time in the job. From there he moved on to become editor of
Empire magazine, which was launched in May 1989. In 1994, McIlheney became managing director of
EMAP Metro, publishers of
Empire and
Smash Hits, as well as other titles such as
Q and
Mojo, and just after they had acquired
FHM. In 1999 he launched
Heat and a year later became chief executive of EMAP Elan, publishers of
Elle,
Red, and
The Face. In 2003, McIlheney moved into new product development, overseeing the launch of
Zoo both in the UK and Australia. At the end of 2006, McIlheney moved to a consultancy role, working on new titles at
EMAP. In January 2008 he became editor-in-chief at Sport Media Group, responsible for a £1 million relaunch in April 2008 of their newspaper titles, the
Daily Sport and
Sunday Sport. In 2009 he launched media consultancy
mcilheneybovis with newspaper art director
Julian Bovis and wrote for publications including
The Word magazine. McIlheney was Chief Executive of the
Professional Publishers Association (PPA). ==Awards==