Appointment of Industry leaders facilitate Maverick’s increasing business growth in USA and Canada as well as senior management level expertise in EMEA and International markets.
Maverick Publishing Specialists, the specialist strategic consultancy and outsource services company for the publishing industry, today welcomed five new Senior Associates to its lead consultancy teams in both the USA and UK / EMEA. The appointment of both Andy Slade in the UK and John Lavender in the US to the Core Maverick consultant ranks, and Andy Williams and Clare Painter (UK), and Nicola Poser (US), to its network of Affiliate Associates, further strengthens Mavericks ability to provide board level, global market expertise to its clients in all regions.
Andy Slade comes to Maverick with over 25 years’ experience in the industry, and joins from Wiley where he has held senior positions in life, earth and environmental sciences, most recently as Global Editorial Director (Books) for Health Sciences. Andy’s background particularly focussed on developing and implementing strategies to exploit business opportunities, improve efficiencies and meet financial targets. Recently this involved strategies for transitioning sales from print to digital; introducing new workflows to support and drive digital growth; launching digital products; and strategies for selecting and partnering with technology providers. He has experience of acquisitions and mergers, business plan development and delivery, team and departmental re-engineering.
John Lavender also has over 40 years’ experience in STM publishing, mainly at senior executive level. His experience of working in both major English language publishing markets and his career covering almost all the major roles in publishing gives him an unrivalled view of the industry. His corporate experience includes senior vice president of publishing (books and journals), online development, marketing, web development and international sales with Taylor & Francis and director of marketing, international sales and business development and electronic publishing with the Thomson Corporation. John specializes in marketing strategy and internet marketing; market research and creating advisory panels; publishing strategy for books and journals; list development; online platforms and packaging of content online; selling online products; and international sales expansion. He too also has extensive mergers and acquisitions experience.
Before joining Maverick as an Affiliate Associate, Andy Williams’ most recent role was Operations Director for Palgrave Macmillan where he was responsible for running the production, technology and bibliographic data departments. Andy has well over 30 years’ experience in publishing production and operations, combining both hands on project experience with strategic level planning and directing, across books, journals and reference titles. Having worked for a number of publishers and suppliers in traditional print and prepress production, his digital publishing knowledge developed further at Macmillan Online Publishing. There he managed all aspects of their reference sites, including Grove Art and Music, Encyclopaedia of Life Sciences and the Statesman’s Yearbook, from article creation to customer delivery, and from hosting to access control. Subsequently, at CUP and then at Palgrave Macmillan, he was heavily involved in developing their digital publishing strategies and content delivery solutions. At Cambridge he also ran the digital asset management team, and took the lead role in defining and implementing their replacement global DAM used by both the academic and ELT divisions.
Nicola Poser, also an Affiliate Associate and specialising in marketing, market research and sales, brings over 15 years of experience in academic and STM publishing to the team, having worked on books, journals, and online products at publishers of varying sizes and business models. Nicola’s areas of strength include strategic planning; branding and message development; audience and author engagement; new product launches; and customer experience and insight. Most recently the Marketing Director at The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, Inc., she led a comprehensive branding project from market research and stakeholder interviews through messaging, positioning, revised style guide and logos, and enhanced programs for reviewers, authors, and surgical residents. In addition, Nicola built a content marketing program leading to increased end-user and author engagement with the JBJS portfolio.
Clare Painter is a well-known rights and licensing professional, helping publishers and content-owning organisations to manage digital licensing and reduce copyright risk, especially where licence terms need to be both effective and practical. She has a particular expertise in digital rights, and works with a wide variety of clients including book and journal publishers, professional membership associations, NGOs, business schools and universities, case study providers, information professionals and university presses (including OUP). Clare combines strategic overview, market knowledge and an eye for contractual detail. Her focus is on copyright audits, digital rights strategy, licensing contracts and permissions.
Speaking of the appointments, Martin Marlow, Principal Maverick Publishing Specialists, said, “We’re delighted to welcome such a talented group of individuals on board. In the last few years, Maverick has grown from strength to strength and these appointments further demonstrate the extent to which Maverick’s client base is also growing and requiring high level strategic and operational advice. John and Nicola’s appointments in particular supports Maverick’s recent high levels of increased business and new client additions in the US region. By attracting such high calibre Senior Executives to the team we can now draw on their considerable experience of the publishing industry to supply an even better quality service to our clients.”