Hachette Book Group USA president and chief operating officer Ken Michaels is leaving to join Macmillan Science and Education in the new role of global chief operating officer at the end of August. Reporting to ceo Annette Thomas, Michaels will be based in both New York and London. Michaels says in the announcement, “There has never been a more exciting time to be in publishing, and the bringing together of Macmillan’s portfolio of science and education businesses represents a powerful opportunity, to make a major impact on learning and discovery around the world. I am looking forward to what we can achieve with a new structure and focus.” He joined HBG as coo in early 2009, and added the title of president last fall.
Hachette says in their own brief statement, “Ken’s vision, drive, and strategic thinking have made HBG a better publisher – able to do more, to move faster, and to serve our authors more effectively. He leaves us well positioned for a future that will continue to bring enormous changes. We have begun recruiting for a new COO and will share news as soon as we have it.”
Macmillan’s Thomas notes that “the new role of chief operating officer has been created to support our businesses as they look to work more closely together than ever before to realise the synergies that exist within the group and become more than the sum of their parts.” The company has put Palgrave Macmillan and Nature Publishing Group into a global science and scholarly group, and their language learning, higher education and school businesses have also been combined into a single global group.