Cengage president and ceo Ron Dunn wrote to employees on Thursday to announce that he will “soon step aside…and take on a new role as executive chairman,” promising he will serve in that role for at least 3 years. Dunn is 65 and admits, “realistically, we’re still some time away from making Cengage Learning a publicly traded company through an Initial Public Offering of stock; and when the IPO does occur, investors will rightly expect that the CEO will continue in that role for several years. Those facts, taken together, lead to an inescapable conclusion: it’s time for a younger […]
Personnel
People: Winstanley Takes Over As Penguin Canada President; McAleer In New Role at Walker
Mike Bryan, who took over as president and Penguin Canada almost two years ago after the departure of David Davidar, is going to retire from publishing and return to the UK. Nicole Winstanley will take over as president while continuing to serve as publisher as well, and vp of finance and operations Barry Gallant becomes chief operating officer. Bryan says in the announcement, “My decision to leave has been personal and geographical but I leave knowing we have the best team in Canadian publishing and am confident Nicole and Barry will lead Penguin to even bigger and greater achievements.” Bryan will […]
People: Don Linn to Run Chicago Distribution
Donald Linn will take over as director of the University of Chicago Press’s Chicago Distribution Center, replacing the recently retired Donald Collins, starting July 16. Linn was owner and ceo of Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, and most recently worked with Firebrand Associates in their consulting division. University of Chicago Press director Garrett Kiely says, “He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this position. The CDC does a great job of serving the needs of its clients and the market, and Don will help to position us for the future.” UK sales and marketing head of DK Catherine Bell will become […]
People, Etc.: Bloomsbury Buys Appled Visual Arts
Bloomsbury has acquired Switzerland’s Applied Visual Arts Publishing for approximately £1.73 million in cash in three annual installments. The company publishes 20 to 30 books a year by academics for students and professionals in the applied visual arts and recorded sales of £1.82 million in 2011. Bloomsbury’s head of visual arts Kathryn Earle will run the line as part of their Academic & Professional division. The company promises synergies with other recent acquisitions such as Fairchild Books and the forthcoming Fashion Photography Archive as well as the existing Berg and Visual Arts list. Indiana University has established a new Office of […]
With Spinoff Official, Harper UK ceo Barnsley Anticipates “More Clout” While Morrow Restructures Publicity and Marketing Departments
With News Corp making the spinoff of its entire publishing business official, it remains to be seen how the newly formed company will operate over the next few months, pending approval, and afterwards, presuming regulatory bodies give the OK for the split. The new business will start life with cash reserves and without any debt, and Rupert Murdoch, talking to Bloomberg Thursday, was appropriately bullish: “Our publishing business is more valuable than people give us credit for…There are great digital opportunities in publishing, and net-net, around the world, we’ll be increasing our numbers and increasing our costs and hopefully increasing […]
People, Etc.
Matthew Ballast has been promoted to acting director of publicity for Grand Central Publishing, replacing Jennifer Romanello, who recently departed the company. Rachel Burley has been appointed vp, director of open access at Wiley, where she will facilitate the identification of open access opportunities and lead the development of products, policy, technology, processes, sales, and marketing initiatives necessary to provide support to authors. She has been at the company for five years, most recently as vp, publisher for current protocols. At S&S Children’s, Jacqui Hudson has been named ebook developer and specialist for the Free Press, Aladdin, Simon Spotlight, Paula […]