-By Lisa Granatstein

Jim Berrien, president and publisher of the Forbes Magazine Group, is stepping down after nine years at the helm, Forbes confirmed today. Berrien will leave his post at the end of the of the year and will become chairman of Forbes magazine. The publisher was responsible for the launch last month of luxe titles ForbesLife Executive Woman and ForbesLife Mountain Time.

The Forbes family “will be considering a variety of scenarios,” said a Forbes spokeswoman.

On the advertising front, the year has has been tough going for all magazine categories, and that includes the personal finance/business genre. The category is down 2.4 percent year to date to 1,462 ad pages, per the Mediaweek Monitor. Forbes, through Aug. 11, is down 17.8 percent compared to the same period the year prior. Rival Fortune is actually up 4.5 percent to 1,379, although the Time Inc. biweekly has had its own troubles of late, shifting Fortune Small Business to the company’s custom publishing unit.

Berrien’s departure follows on the heels of other top execs in magazine publishing who are either taking on more strategic roles in the company or are exiting altogether, including Hachette Filipacchi Media president/CEO Jack Kliger, who after nine years as CEO, will assume the role of HFM U.S. chairman as well. In addition, Longtime Newsweek president and worldwide publisher Greg Osberg will also leave his job this fall to return to the digital media space.

Said Forbes chairman/CEO Steve Forbes: "Jim’s tenure has been impressive, and his leadership and creative initiatives have secured the number-one position for Forbes in its competitive business category for the past six years, since 2002."