Thomas Florio, publisher of Vogue, is a supremely self-confident man. “There are people who love to win, and there are people who hate to lose,” Mr. Florio said over lunch. “I expect to win. I’m not modest about my ambitions for Vogue. I’m expected to deliver. But I also have perspective.”

The 49-year-old Long Island-born man and the 112-year-old magazine whose financial health he’s responsible for have never been in better shape. But Mr. Florio knows that in the face of increased competition for ads, especially from the Internet, he cannot afford to let up concerning one of the world’s best-known brands.

At 609 pages – including 457 pages of ads – Vogue’s March issue was the largest for that month in the history of the publication, America’s leading fashion magazine in revenue and circulation. The September 2004 issue was the biggest monthly consumer magazine ever produced: It had 833 pages, including 631 pages of ads.

Although Vogue’s parent company, privately held Advance Publications, doesn’t release financial details, Mr. Florio acknowledged that Vogue is the top ad-revenue earner in the stable of 17 magazines operated by Advance Publications’ Conde Nast unit.

“We’ve been the world’s biggest-selling fashion magazine for five years in a row,” Mr. Florio said. In the three years since he came to Vogue from GQ – another title owned by Advance and its two main proprietors, S.I. “Si” Newhouse and his brother Donald – Mr. Florio and Vogue’s editor, Anna Wintour, have pushed Vogue’s monthly circulation above1.2 million.

“One out of every 10 American women read the September issue of 304 1171 438 1182Vogue,” he said. Mr. Florio also started a Web site, www.ShopVogue.com, that had 11 million ad views in March alone. “I can tell you that Vogue’s ad revenues so far this year are already 7% above a comparable period last year,” he said.

His self-confidence could be seen as hubris, but Mr. Florio’s perspective on his success is such that he comes across as level-headed and accessible. The assured manner as well as the amiable approachability flow from his upbringing in Wantagh, L.I., where he grew up with his older brothers Michael and Steven, a former CEO of Conde Nast. His father, Steven Sr., worked in retailing and was always proud that he was in the lead American military unit that liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Mr. Florio has been married for 18 years to Lori Zelikow, whom he met when he worked in the ad department of New York magazine. Ms. Zelikow, a former publisher of New Woman, was once asked if she was bothered by the fact that her husband was surrounded by so many beautiful models. She famously replied: “No. He hates change.”

That characterization might be relevant to Mr. Florio on a personal level, but professionally he sees himself as an agent of change. He began his publishing career in Esquire’s circulation department. Before moving to GQ, Mr. Florio was president of the New Yorker when Tina Brown transformed it into a buzz generator.

“After the New Yorker, I can never have anxiety again,” he said, recalling the creative chaos of his time there. At another Tina Brown-edited magazine, Vanity Fair, Mr. Florio increased fashion ad revenues from $36,000 an issue to $2.5 million in barely two years.

Now Mr. Florio is extending the Vogue brand in an effort to “transcend the magazine category.” He produces a TV series, “TrendWatch.” In collaboration with director Douglas Keeve, he just produced a documentary, “Seamless,” which follows the work of up-and-coming fashion designers who compete for the Vogue Fashion Fund Award. In a few months, he will launch Men’s Vogue- there’s already a successful Teen Vogue – with a guaranteed base of 300,000. He’s created an in-house creative team for ads at Vogue, Vogue Studio, which is increasingly taking on outside clients.

“My future? Bigger playing fields, stronger cross-media platforms,” Mr. Florio said. “I’m always focused. It’s always a race in the publishing business, but at Vogue there’s no finishing line.”