Hachette Filipacchi Media, the publisher of Elle, Woman’s Day and Car & Driver magazines, is the latest American publishing company to shake up its executive suite this year after it dispatched Alain Lemarchand from the president and CEO job today — a position he has only held for the past two years.

Hachette is going outside the company for a replacement, naming Steve Parr to the position.

Parr left his job as president of Motor Trend publisher Source Interlink Media a year ago.

Earlier he headed the Primedia Enthusiast titles, including Motor Trend and Automobile.com, that were sold to Source Interlink for $1.2 billion in 2007. Before that, Parr, who was born in Canada, headed Emap USA, which folded its tent here. He also had a long career in book publishing with Pearson PLC.

Lemarchand was known as an executive with a sharp pencil, who downsized the company significantly through the last two years, closing Metropolitan Home and selling Popular Photography, Flying, Boating, Sound & Vision and American Photo to Bonnier while paring its executive ranks.

The company said Lemarchand will be appointed “in a new senior management position within Lagardére Active effective Oct. 1.”

On Oct. 4, the company is slated to vacate its longtime USA headquarters at 1633 Broadway and move into three floors of space in the Time & Life Building on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. The company is also in the midst of renaming the company as HFMUS, instead of Hachette Filipacchi Media.

The move to switch CEOs follows the appointment in June of a new president of Hearst magazines, when David Carey was raided from a group president job at Condé Nast, to take over from Cathie Black who was moved up to chairwoman.

Jack Griffin was named last month to be the new CEO of Time Inc., replacing Ann Moore.

Griffin, who resigned the president and CEO of Meredith’s magazine group, officially started in his new job on Monday.