Maverick Business Strategy & Transformation

Martin Marlow

Principal and President

Martin Marlow is the President and Principal of Maverick Publishing Specialists. He coordinates the Associate teams alongside working as the lead analyst on a number of key assignments. With over 30 years senior management experience in publishing and electronic information, Martin specializes in strategic and operational sales and marketing; product development and management; and publisher/partner relations.

He has delivered and supported a wide range of services including e-journal and e-book aggregation platforms; cross format e-content retrieval systems and numerous online datasets and communities. His customer and market development activities have been deliberately crafted across all main content types, market sectors and steps in the supply chain.

Martin has been a frequent speaker at Industry events in Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific and is a regular reviewer and contributor in the industry press – commenting on sales, marketing and market development strategies, new product innovation and developing industry trends. He was viewed as one of 5 “key thought leaders” in the information industry in the UKSG’s E-Resources Management Handbook on the future of electronic publishing, where he was asked to provide his views and opinions

Prior to launching Maverick, Martin was Vice President of Publisher Business Development + Marketing for Ingram Digital (the digital media arm of the Ingram Content Group) where he was responsible for overseeing the worldwide sales and marketing activities of Ingram Digital solutions to publishers from all sectors, as well as conceiving and directing all their solution and corporate brand marketing. Previous to that, Martin was Vice President for Sales and Marketing for the e-content system development and hosting company, Atypon Systems Inc. Other past positions also include Director of Strategic Marketing for ProQuest Information and Learning, Director of E-Commerce for Blackwell Ltd and Sales and Marketing Director (Academic Division) for SilverPlatter Information.

Rebecca Rinehart

CEO and Head, US Operations

Rebecca is a publishing professional who has over 40 years of experience in all aspects of scientific, technical, and medical publishing—book, journals, periodicals, and online. She is the former Publisher of American Psychiatric Publishing, a division of the American Psychiatric Association, and the world’s leading publisher of books, journals, periodicals, and online resources on psychiatry, mental health, and behavioral science. In this position, she managed acquisitions and new product development, peer review, marketing, editorial, production, rights, and distribution for print and online products, most notably the international publication of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).

Previously Rebecca served as Senior Director and Publisher at The Endocrine Society overseeing the publication of its four scientific journals, three periodicals, books and CME programs, and Endocrine News. In this position she launched a book program and two new periodicals as well as an online news feature.

Rebecca started her career at Harper & Row Publishers, where she held various production, editorial, and management positions before serving as Senior Medical Editor for acquisitions. She then joined The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to develop a publishing program of books, periodicals, and consumer literature that included the journal, Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Nancy Roberts

Senior Associate, Head of Content & Technology Division
Nancy has worked in a variety of production and operations roles across publishing for the last 20 years, following on from the completion of her postgraduate publishing diploma at West Herts College. Her experience encompasses a wide spectrum of sectors, from children’s to trade to academic, culminating in her most recent role as Academic Global Operations Director at Cambridge University Press, during which time she spent time working out of the Hong Kong office and travelling extensively in Asia, Europe and the US. She therefore has a global view of the publishing industry and brings a uniquely broad perspective gained from across the different sectors in which she has worked.

Nancy is passionate about helping businesses to solve problems and deliver sustainable profitability and process efficiency. She specializes in operations strategy and execution; process design and improvement; delivering operational efficiency and profitability; digital workflows; metadata and content enrichment and dissemination; organizational design; supply chain management; outsourcing and offshoring strategies; project management; and knowledge management. She also enjoys providing personal coaching and support to first time managers and leaders. She has a PhD in Postcolonial Feminist Literary Theory and is currently an EMBA student at Cranfield University.

Jayne Marks

Senior Associate

Jayne brings over 40 years of scholarly publishing experience to Maverick.  She has worked at senior levels in a variety of companies helping to devise and deliver on business strategies tailored for different markets.  Throughout her career Jayne has responded to ever changing market environments by developing new product, sales or content strategies to maximize new opportunities.

Jayne has worked on all aspects of journal publishing focusing particularly on journal development and strategy.  More recently her focus has been on helping journals and societies to respond to the new requirements from funders for more open publications linked to data sets.  Jayne has worked with a wide variety of society and association partners to help craft publications that meet the needs of their specific markets and members, spanning disciplines from the basic sciences to social sciences and most recently to the unique challenges of clinical medicine.

Starting as a copy editor and proof-reader, Jayne spent a number of years as a managing editor, helping to managing the peer review process.  She then moved to Macmillan, where she worked in a variety of roles on journals and books.  In the 1990’s Jayne was a director of the newly formed Nature Publishing Group and managed a range of Nature journals in both the UK and US.  She then spent three years as the founding director of MPS Technologies – an off shoot of Macmillan Production in India – developing new services to meet the needs of book and journal publishers.

Jayne then moved to the US to work for SAGE Publishing as VP Journals.  Here she helped to expand their journal portfolio and introduce open access journals to the group.  For the last 10 years, Jayne worked as Vice President for Wolters Kluwer Health Learning, Research and Practice, overseeing a broad portfolio of journals, working with medical society partners and introducing new product options to help diversify traditional revenue streams.

Jayne’s primary focus has been on understanding the needs of the customers and markets that her products serve and ensuring they evolve to meet changing needs.

 

Amanda Weaver

Senior Associate

Amanda is an experienced, MBA educated, strategically aware senior publishing industry professional. With over 35 years in B2B, STM and Professional Association publishing, before joining Maverick her latest role was Director – Professional Publishing and e-Learning at the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), and previously held both Publisher and Publishing Director positions with Elsevier.

Amanda possesses an excellent track record of growing existing businesses and launching new ones. Her wide-ranging experience includes establishing and overseeing an e-learning academy for the IET; standards and good practice publishing; managing journal and books programmes; launching magazines; and developing conferences. Additionally, Amanda has in-depth expertise in winning society publishing contracts; developing and launching e-products; running RFP and tender exercises; and specifying and implementing new publishing systems.

 

Kate Wood

Senior Associate, Head of Marketing & Market Research

Kate Wood joins Maverick with over 20 years in publishing with experience spanning academic, STM and trade as well as business-to-business magazine publishing. She has held a number of senior roles as a Director of Publicity for Robson Books, followed by positions as Group PR Director and Director of Marketing at Chrysalis Books Group. Kate was an Associate Marketing Director in STM at Wiley, where she led global teams and ran high impact campaigns resulting in product launches generating seven figure revenues, top 10 bestselling titles and high double-digit revenue growth for portfolios across digital STM products. While at Wiley, she was awarded the prestigious Pacesetter award for her work on digital product launch. After leaving Wiley, she was a finalist in the LEAP Entrepreneur of the Year award 2017. With nearly 10 years’ experience in trade and over 10 years’ experience in academic publishing, she is a true publishing all-rounder.

Her wide background in publishing began with publishing research reports in the civil service, moving to Chadwyck-Healey where she worked as an editor on some of the first digital products to go to market, this was followed by 2 years in magazine publishing and by 20 years as a publicity and marketing specialist. The skills Kate brings to Maverick range from marketing strategy and market research, competitor analysis and audits to the nuts and bolts of marketing communications such as campaign management and planning, copywriting, digital and social media marketing, content creation, PR and publicity campaigns and modern marketing methods such as email automation and CRM systems. She has considerable expertise in all sides of product marketing for a wide range of content –  books, journals, references and data and workflow tools – and in product launches. At Wiley, she was a marketing specialist in chemistry, molecular life sciences, physical sciences and pharma. Her wide experience of many different parts of the industry allows her to see across discipline and from trade to academic and vice versa.

Kate is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and a fully qualified CIM marketer. She speaks four languages at various levels of fluency.

Gareth Dyke

Senior Associate

Dr Gareth Dyke is a prolific scientific author, researcher, content creator, and journal manager who has published more than 320 peer-reviewed articles over the last 25 years, as well as numerous other pieces (Scientific American) and books. His publications include articles in Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy (USA) and other high-profile outlets. Gareth has worked for more than 18 years as an Editor-in-Chief at the Taylor & Francis journal Historical Biology. He led this journal from zero articles to become one of the leading titles in palaeontology, including its first impact factor (growing each year).

Gareth has a PhD in geology and biology from the University of Bristol, worked as a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and was an Associate Professor at University College Dublin (Ireland) and at the University of Southampton (UK). He is an active teacher and researcher affiliated with universities in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Kazakhstan, and China.

Gareth provides an unique overview of author-facing products and services having worked as a professional editor, as Head of Content at Charlesworth Author Services, as an Education Manager at Edanz and TopEdit, and as Director of Global Content at Research Square Company (fully acquired by Springer Nature in 2022). Gareth is also a Director at Bentham Science Publishers and ReviewerCredits, responsible for academic relationships and business development. He has well developed networks across academia and the scholarly publishing industry.

Gareth brings to Maverick his deep experience at the interface between research and publishing, helping non-native English speakers – especially in China and Central Asia where he has well developed networks – publish their work and understand scholarly publishing processes. Gareth has conducted thousands of online and face-to-face training sessions and is accredited by the UK and Irish Higher Education Authorities.

Ed Newman

Senior Associate

Ed is a publishing professional with over 10 years’ experience in journals publishing. With a particular focus on open access (OA), he has provided strategic advice, planning, financial forecasting/pricing, and project management for numerous partner clients looking to adapt to the rapidly changing journals market. This has involved the implementation of OA growth strategies for subscription journals (utilising transformative agreements), transitioning to fully OA business models, moving from print to e-only, and the launch of new titles. With the use of data analytics, Ed provides expert guidance on how best to commission new content, engage with a broad geographic market, and take journals to the top of their disciplines.

During his time at SAGE Publications, Ed worked with numerous societies covering engineering, materials science, and clinical medicine. His exposure to such varied academic fields has given him extensive knowledge of the different requirements and challenges faced by each subject area, as well as core insight into how to adapt and evolve in the changing industry. By using market research to inform decisions, Ed provides thorough strategic advice and guidance that is tailored to the needs of the partner.

He also has a wealth of expertise in supporting journal growth through the enhancement of editorial process workflows, peer-review ethics, and the handling of RFPs and contract negotiations. Ed provides exceptional, bespoke account management support for partners looking to streamline their publishing activities and provides strategic advice on how to engage with membership bodies and the wider target audience. The outcome of these activities has been to produce well organised, efficient systems that enable continued growth and development.

Martin Davies

Senior Associate

Martin has over 30 years’ experience of working in the publishing industry. He has worked in a range of sectors including professional, academic, medical, and educational publishing. Before joining Maverick, his latest role was Head of Digital Learning Products at the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) and has previously held e-Learning Director and Publisher roles at Wiley and Editorial Director and Publisher roles at Hodder Education.

Martin has wide-ranging experience from researching and launching e-commerce enabled digital learning platforms, developing textbook programmes for the school, FE and HE sectors in both domestic and international markets as well as the development of professional health sciences book and journal products for global consumption. Additionally, Martin has in-depth knowledge of working collaboratively with membership organisations, digital learning platforms and authoring tools, agile product development, running RFP and tendering exercises and market research projects both in the UK and internationally.

Alison Maclean

Senior Associate

Alison is a publishing operations executive with international experience in concept-to-market editorial and content management in trade, education, reference and professional publishing. She has shaped publishing programs, directed content operations, and marshalled complex project portfolios to deliver significant benefits. Her focus is on bridging from stakeholder priorities to execution, leveraging organizational design, technology solutions and process optimization for scalable results.

Most recently, Alison held the position VP Content Enablement at Wiley. Her brief included defining and executing strategic initiatives to control cost and to make colleagues’ work more meaningful. She led the global team responsible for process design, content technology, editorial standards, accessibility initiatives, data governance, KPI design and reporting, and vendor management. Prior to that, she was a tenured professor and program director of Creative Book Publishing at Humber College (Ontario), guiding graduate students to best practices in book publishing.

With a proven ability to forge successful partnerships, Alison is adept at productive collaboration. Her experience and passion is working with teams to commission, shape and deliver content with clarity and impact.

 

Emma Thomas

Senior Associate

Emma has worked in a variety of editorial, strategy, production and operations roles in academic publishing for the last 27 years. Her experience includes working at major publishers like OUP, Wiley, Emerald and Springer Nature, as well as managing production and peer review for the British Psychological Society.

She specializes in operations strategy and execution; systems and workflows that support Open Access; organizational change management; process design and improvement; delivering operational efficiency and profitability; digital workflows; project management, and business development (journals editorial). She is a qualified coach, experienced facilitator, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, and ProSci Change Manager.

Hilary Crichton

Senior Associate

Hilary has spent nearly two decades in scholarly publishing, working for not-for-profit and commercial publishers in the U.K. and the U.S.

As an Editor at the Royal Society of Chemistry, Nature Materials and Wiley, she gained significant expertise in manuscript handling and decision making, and in generating and supporting journal growth.  With a focus on optimising author, reviewer and editor experience, she has streamlined editorial workflows, reconfigured manuscript submission systems and revised production procedures. Hilary is a also a skilled communicator, having fostered relationships with learned societies, managed the publishing operations of a society’s journal portfolio, appointed and collaborated with editorial boards, and trained and mentored colleagues.

As well as proficiency in peer review, Hilary has extensive knowledge of research integrity, publication ethics and journal marketing.  During her career she has overseen new journal launches and revitalised stagnating titles.  Her commitment to staying up-to-date with progress in the industry has provided her with insight into the current challenges publishers and researchers face, particularly surrounding the drive towards open research.

Hilary holds an MChem(Hons) (University of Edinburgh) and Ph.D. (Heriot-Watt University) in chemistry.  She has been invited to speak on scholarly publishing at several academic institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University, New York University and Rice University.

Michael Geelan

Senior Associate

Michael is an experienced Executive Chairman, CEO and Managing Director with over 45 years’ book industry experience, primarily in the academic, scholarly and STM sectors.

With an early career in marketing at Pergamon Press, working across scholarly monographs and journals, textbooks, reference books and professional medical publications, Michael is best known as Chairman of the Board and majority shareholder at Eurospan Group, where he oversaw its transformation from a specialist sales agency, focussing primarily on UK and Europe, into a class-leading global sales, marketing and distribution agency. During this expansion, Michael established branch offices in India, Singapore and Australia, each backed by sales agents, local stockholding and country-specific marketing, which were further enhanced by later regional entities in both Latin and North America.

A seasoned publishing professional, and skilled in sales and marketing, leadership, business strategy / development and Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), for publishers looking to expand internationally, Michael’s extensive knowledge of the processes and pitfalls in doing so is second to none. His experience in identifying and working with regional sales agents and representatives, local customer engagement and marketing techniques, alongside pricing and stock availability, is invaluable to those he assists.

His M&A expertise is in no small part enhanced by the prominent part he played in the acquisition by Eurospan of Electronica Books & Media Ltd, Turpin Distribution Services Ltd and, most recently, Transatlantic Publishers Group Ltd. Subsequently, he was also lead negotiator on the sale of first Turpin, then Eurospan, to United Independent Distributors (UID) in 2020 (whom he then joined as Vice-Chair and Non-Executive Director to support the Board and the Chairman during the transition).

Michael brings to Maverick not just a safe pair of hands in marketing and sales, but also solid experience at planning and delivering profitable revenue growth in international markets.

Gavin Jamieson

Senior Associate

Gavin has over 30 years’ experience working in the publishing industry, primarily in the academic and STM sectors. After graduating with a BA in Publishing from Edinburgh Napier University, he originally started his career in medical journals with Churchill Livingstone. Subsequently he had a variety of senior management roles including Journals and Electronic Publisher with Greenwich Medical Media, Commissioning Editor for books and journals at Cambridge University Press and Hodder Education. Before joining up with Maverick, and establishing his own consultancy company, Gavin was Senior Commissioning Editor with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE Publishing).

Gavin has extensive experience at list building, commissioning new titles and acquiring journals, managing online resources, strategy planning and working with international editors and authors. He has most recently been working with international societies to project manage the publication of conference proceedings, and creating a strategy for journal inclusion in major abstracting/indexing services.

Gavin has been an invited guest speaker on STM publishing at University College London, University of Strathclyde and Edinbrugh Napier University. He is a Director of the annual Cuckfield Book Festival, working with high profile fiction and non-fiction authors, and his Lapwing Publishing Services imprint provides a hybrid publishing route for authors.

Rob McPherson

Senior Associate

Rob adds over 30 years of highly-technical experience in the STM / Scholarly publishing and Distribution industries – together with a track record of calm, pragmatic and incisive lateral thinking – to the Maverick team

From his early career in IT Development at Blackwell Science and then Marston Book Services, Rob quickly moved into project management, business analysis and then senior management with Ingenta, before setting up his own consultancy company and subsequently working with United Independent Distributors.

Rob has worked internationally in India, Sri Lanka, China and Australia; relocating to Sri Lanka for a number of years to set up and run an offshore development centre. He is also the author of white papers on prospective market expansion, third-party representation and M&A projects in China and Australia.

His project management experience includes the end-to-end implementation of ERP solutions, warehouse management systems, B2B/BC2 e-commerce systems, data warehouses, third-party logistics integration and inventory transition projects.

A highly experienced business consultant and corporate trouble-shooter, his areas of expertise include: RFP generation, feasibility studies, lost-revenue recovery, cost-saving projects and post-implementation reviews. Rob also has significant product management experience and has created numerous third-party integrations, reseller agreements and associated legal contracts.

Chris Humphrey

Senior Associate

Chris has spent 10 years running operations for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, working on streamlining activities right through the publication process, including management and oversight of an in-house print production environment, a semi-automated pre-press and author liaison system through the use of a bespoke database system, and a warehousing and fulfilment department. As a result of CSP’s initiative to offer production and fulfilment services to other academic and non-academic publishers, he has a wide range of experience with the challenges publishers typically face and enjoys thinking creatively about the best ways to approach them. Having also worked extensively and directly with authors for many years, he also has a solid understanding of the need to balance efficiency and optimisation, with traditional publishing values, and how to present modernisation efforts in a positive way.

Chris is a passionate problem solver, with a particular keenness for data analysis driven decision making and process improvement. He specialises in improving operational efficiency and profitability, organisational design, supply chain management, data analysis, internal technical systems and database development oversight, distribution channel development and streamlining, project management and author liaison/publishing specific challenges (rights, production, legal, etc), and product pricing analysis and strategic review. He studied Chinese at university and has an EMBA (distinction grade) from Durham University. He is currently also learning the programming language python, having worked with it extensively as a manager for many years.

Gary Bowman

Senior Associate

Gary has over 30 years’ experience working in the publishing industry. He originally started his career at Butterworths (now part of Reed Elsevier) and subsequently had a variety of senior management roles including Customer Service Director, Development Director, and Implementation Services Director. Before joining up with Maverick, alongside establishing his own consultancy company, Gary’s his most recent roles were with Vista/Ingenta, where he progressed through various senior positions during his time with the company.

Gary is an accomplished Project & Team Manager, with practical experience of many system implementations across different publishing sectors in both the UK and Europe, as well as North America. He has extensive knowledge of Order Management, WMS, Rights & Royalty, CRM, Product Manager, Production and Permission systems – and he was also directly responsible for leading the team that built and implemented the original, widely used, global PubEasy system over 20 years ago.

Equally happy working as part of a team, or directly managing teams or people, Gary’s significant and wide-ranging knowledge and expertise enables him to provide business consultancy and project management across a variety of areas. These include system implementations and upgrades; business process and operational reviews; business system requirements; definition and design; system integrations; and data migration projects.

Gareth Jarratt

Senior Associate

Gareth brings 28 years of experience working within the print and electronic supply chains of trade and academic publishers, most recently as the Director of Book Publishing Services at Taylor & Francis. A keen believer that the best publishing is for nothing if customers can neither find, access, or use it, he has made it his mission to ensure that books can get to customers when they want it, wherever they want it, in the format they want it, in a manner that is both financially and environmentally sustainable.

With responsibilities in areas including inventory management, procurement, and supplier management (including RFPs) on a global basis, Gareth has led projects including major distributor changes as well as driving broader supply chain transformation, with its supporting process re-engineering, as well as mass backlist digitisation (across print and e-products), and ongoing content and metadata enhancement. He has been involved in business systems selection and implementation and has handled numerous publisher acquisitions, integrations and divestments. With a clear sense of the pressures facing the industry, he is a strong believer in the power of teams working together to forge solutions to those challenges, and of the importance of quick tactical, as well as longer term strategic solutions. He is a Director at Book Industry Communications.

Ruth King

Affiliate Senior Associate, Open Science and Open Access

Ruth is a publishing professional with deep experience of open science, change management and process development. She has worked in open access publishing since its inception and brings experience from a breadth of business types, from a start-up company using a new business model to global corporate environments.

Ruth has a special interest in in open scholarly infrastructure and how open principles can strengthen research. She has worked closely with the World’s largest professional societies and NGOs to support them to transition to open science. Including open research data strategy, transitioning a journal portfolio to open access, preparing an organization for an open science future, and convening stakeholders from across the research landscape to explore the relationship between open access and the development of research in low- and middle-income countries.

Before becoming a consultant, Ruth was Editorial Director for Springer Nature’s open access journals in Health Sciences, at BioMed Central. A lot of her career has been about looking ahead and enabling change. Ruth has a collaborative and progressive outlook. She brings a great mix of insight, logical thought process and creativity to her work.

Ken Heideman

Senior Associate

As Director of Publications at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) for over 20 years, Ken managed a large team of publication assistants, technical editors, and copy editors, collectively responsible for the timely publication of 11 scholarly peer-reviewed journals. He also supervised all aspects of the AMS Book Program. In addition, he was Senior Editor of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the society’s flagship magazine.  Ken’s management philosophy focused on each individual’s unique needs and strengths while forging a close-knit team ethic. This resulted in exemplary performance by the group as a cohesive whole and led to his development of a Publication Management course, which he has presented at many professional conferences.

Ken became a liaison from AMS to the greater publishing community, primarily via his involvement with the Council of Science Editors (CSE), an international membership organization for publishing professionals.  Prior to being elected President of CSE, he served the organization as an executive board member, instructor, a regular columnist in the quarterly journal Science Editor, and a mentor for early-career professionals.   CSE provided Ken with invaluable experience interfacing and working with leaders of other scholarly societies.

Ken is a wordsmith and communicator —an editor, writer, content developer, management consultant, and public speaker —who specializes in adapting complex and technical concepts to any target audience. His skill set and interests extend well beyond the scientific realm to a wide variety of technical and creative genres. By way of background, Ken holds an advanced degree in meteorology. However, he learned early on in his career that his literary talents superseded his forecasting abilities. He thus wisely chose to spend his career in service to the written and spoken word rather than in anticipation of precipitation.

Anjali Chadha

Senior Associate

Anjali is a publishing professional with over 23 years of experience spread over academic and scholarly publishing and content development. Before joining Maverick, her latest role was as Publisher and head of publishing program at Wiley India, an Indian subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. She has established credentials in acquiring, developing and delivering content across higher education domains, both in print and digital formats; development and delivery of differentiated versions of global bestsellers for international markets; and design of new product series and innovative learning solutions based on market intelligence and customer requirement. She has been closely involved in the planning and implementation of dynamic publishing strategies for business growth, cost rationalization, improved profitability and smooth operations across business functions.

After completing her PhD in Chemistry from IIT Delhi, she has worked on government fellowships with two of the leading research organizations in India – Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in the area of scientific information and documentation. This built additional expertise for retrieving, interpreting and analyzing scientific information from a range of sources, and its collation and dissemination in specified format; compilation and editing of monographs; and in abstracting and indexing scientific research papers.

John Lavender

Affiliate Senior Associate (USA)

John has over 40 years’ experience in STM publishing, mainly at senior executive level. He lives in the USA having moved from the UK in 2001. 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 was an early adopter of electronic publishing, creating the first journal to use PDFs to distribute content in 1997 and the first virtual e-book library in 1999.

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 has a keen understanding of the financial needs of a business and how to ensure that financial goals are met. He has also had wide experience in the acquisition of both publishing companies and lists, having handled over 20 successful acquisitions during his career. He can assist with any size of acquisition at any or all stages: from planning and developing an acquisition proposal, negotiating the acquisition and valuation, through to integration once acquired.

Marie Hooper

Affiliate Senior Associate

Marie has over 20 years’ experience in academic and professional STM publishing and information analytics as well as non-profit and consulting tenure. During her time at Elsevier, she held international leadership roles across book acquisitions, project management, strategy, and operations. Most recently, as VP of Health Customer Services at Elsevier, Marie drove effective cross-matrix collaboration to implement a SaaS customer experience / customer success model.

Marie’s skills range from: customer experience / success; operations management; strategy planning; project management; change management; process, workflow and organisational analysis and redesign; data driven problem solving; continuous improvement; book acquisitions; coaching, mentoring and team leadership.

A passionate problem solver, self-starter, and “best practice” advocate, Marie has a particular keenness for data driven decision making and process improvement to deliver impact and insight. Via a “can-do”, results driven attitude combined with a collaborative approach, she specialises in improving operational efficiency and embedding a customer experience focus across organisations.

Marie is a driven and impassioned customer-focused consultant available for project level consulting and interim management. She is energised by resolving complex issues and delivering measurable impact to drive profitable service improvement and sustainable customer success.

Julia Brockley

Affiliate Senior Associate

Julia combines content development and list building expertise with partner relationship management skills acquired from over 25 years of experience in academic and scholarly publishing. With creativity, market insight and a flair for anticipating emerging disciplinary trends, Julia has held senior-level publisher/commissioning roles in at a number of companies including, Palgrave Macmillan, (Springer-Nature), Routledge, (Taylor & Francis), Chadwyck Healey, (ProQuest), SAGE Publishing, and Berg Publications, (Bloomsbury Academic).

During her career, Julia has commissioned and managed journals, (including society-owned ones), digital resources and books, spanning all product categories, (textbooks, major reference works, and monographs). She approaches the process of content development with creativity and commercial judgement, and a keen eye to strategic list development. Many of her textbooks are now in their fourth or fifth edition, and a number of her launch journals including New Media & Society, (1999), and The Journal of Visual Culture, (2002), helped define their respective disciplines and continue so to do.

Julia believes passionately in the social value of publishing and is inspired and excited by the pace of change in the industry. In professional terms this translates into the pursuit of a sustainable Open Access model for HSS book publishing.

Julia’s skills span all the content development functions including pre-commissioning research, competitor and market analysis, author/editor selection, advisory panels and peer review, business case development, financial and investment appraisal. In addition, she can offer a board range of team management experience developed both within publishing as well as outside the industry.

Jigisha Patel

Affiliate Senior Associate, Research Integrity Consultant

Formerly a medical doctor and academic, Jigisha has spent the last 13 years in scholarly publishing developing my expertise in research integrity. She led the first Research Integrity Group, a team dedicated to maintaining research integrity standards, at BioMed Central and helped to establish the research integrity group at Springer Nature before becoming an independent research integrity consultant.

Jigisha’s skills range from manuscript handling and decision making through to training, policy formulation, project management, research, writing and strategic thinking.

She uses her experience to create and deliver strategies that help to manage, prevent and detect research and publication misconduct and that adapt as challenges to research integrity change.

Jigisha has a particular expertise in medical research and publication manipulation.

Emilie McDermott

Affiliate Senior Associate

Emilie provides Editorial Management Solutions to Publishers, Editors and Journal owners. She has a broad range of expertise within academic publishing and has managed Book projects as well as academic Journals. She has a wealth of knowledge around Rights and Permissions, advising customers about copyright and attribution.  Acting as a Senior Content Editor within an Editorial team, she has expertise in managing Editorial Boards, peer review management and is familiar with systems such as ScholarOne and Editorial Manager.

Within the Production department Emilie managed an overseas team to ensure regular copy flow was maintained for her portfolio and identify any potential issues and provide solutions. Ensuring schedules were adhered to and that journals were typeset to standard were also amongst her responsibilities. Emilie’s main passion lies within publication ethics, having worked as a Research Integrity Manager handling cases of ethical misconduct and conducting investigations in accordance with industry standards. As a Community Advisor for UKRIO, Emilie is constantly developing her knowledge of this area, as it continually challenges academic publishing and the scholarly community.

Emilie has worked at Clarivate as an Editor at Web of Science, conducting evaluations and providing feedback and guidance on journals around best practice and offering Editorial recommendations for Publishers. Emilie offers a multifaceted end-to-end skillset and is familiar with the systems, operating practices and challenges that Publishers and Editorial boards are managing.

Ana Heredia

Affiliate Senior Associate, Latin America

Ana is a former researcher who moved first into STEM editorial and publishing, and more recently into open science infrastructure.

After more than 15 years in research, Ana joined Elsevier as a Research Advisor for Latin America, developing extensive relationships and partnerships within the research community: universities and research institutions, learned societies, government agencies and funding agencies. At Elsevier Brazil, Ana joined the Journal’s Department, managing acquisitions, the daily editorial and production workflow, and acting as a strategic consultant for societies journals in their strategy and indexing challenges. She then worked as a consultant for the Research Intelligence team, providing insights and solutions for research institutions and agencies.

After Elsevier, Anna then changed from commercial publishing to the non-profit space as Regional Director for Latin America for ORCID. here she was responsible for driving the community engagement and membership strategy in the region.

Ana is a Biologist by training, and has a PhD in Science (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and a Msc in Neuroscience (Université Toulouse III), two post-doctorates fellowships and a few papers published on Eco-ethology of ants. She is an active member of SSP – Society for Scholarly Publishing, NISO and C4DISC, and is particularly committed to open research and equity, inclusion and diversity in scholarly communication. She is fluent in English and French, and native in Portuguese and Spanish.

Matthew Salter

Affiliate Senior Associate

Matthew Salter is the founder and CEO of Akabana Consulting LLC and is a multi-lingual publishing executive with over 20 years of experience in scholarly publishing and research communications. Following a successful career in academic research at leading institutions in the UK and Japan, he transitioned into STEM publishing and science communication and has worked in senior roles at leading commercial and learned society publishers. These include NPG Nature Asia-Pacific (now part of SpringerNature) where he headed up MacMillan Science Communication, the custom-publishing arm of Nature Publishing Group, and IOP Publishing where he led partner publishing and business development in the Asia-Pacific region and managed the Tokyo and Beijing offices. In 2016, Matthew moved from Japan to the east coast of the US as the first ever Publisher of the American Physical Society (APS), a position he held until the end of 2021. On leaving APS, Matthew founded Akabana Consulting to deliver strategic  scholarly publishing editorial and language services to the international research community.

Matthew’s work is driven by a passion for research and scholarship, and a focus on delivering innovative and client-focused publishing and research dissemination solutions with compelling value propositions. His experience spans publishing and business strategy, new journal launches and portfolio design, editorial services, and content creation, as well as marketing and social media strategy.

In his publishing career Matthew has launched multiple journals and has a proven track record of creating innovative science communication tools, growing high-quality journal content, driving open access and open science, and increasing publishing revenues. He also has extensive experience working with non-profit organizations and is a former Board member of STM and CHORUS.

Matthew holds a BSc and PhD in chemistry (Imperial College). He is a former Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellow (Tohoku University), Lecturer in Organic chemistry (King’s College London) and a JST ERATO staff member at the University of Tokyo. He is fluent in Japanese, proficient in Mandarin Chinese, and has extensive experience of Asian business cultures.

Katharine Szamuely

Affiliate Senior Associate

Katharine is a senior finance business partner and CIMA qualified accountant with 20 years’ experience providing commercial financial support and working with Board-level management in academic publishing, financial information services and media. Most recently she spent 10 years at Springer Nature covering institutional subscriptions, open access, trade sales and eCommerce across journals, books, databases and author services. She has developed strong skills in modelling, analysis, planning and communicating, comfortably moving from detailed financials to broader management and strategy.

Her area of particular focus is open access publishing, including fully open access journals, Transformative Agreements and hybrid journals, and strategic planning for the transition to open access. Her work on fully open access journals has included enhancing understanding of the growth drivers of open access journals, improving forecasting and decision making, developing criteria for starting and developing journals, improving pipeline management for large journals and portfolios, and supporting Managing Directors in P&L management of these high growth businesses.

Her work on Transformative Agreements began in Europe with the first agreements over 8 years ago. This has included many deals, moving from Europe to the US, Asia and the rest of the world, e.g. analysing publication patterns, developing the ongoing methodology to support sales pitches, reporting to existing customers, providing financial and strategic guidance for new deals and renewals. It has also included strategic analysis, e.g. financial modelling of the long-term impact of the growth of Transformative Agreements and of Plan S proposals and evaluating scenarios and developing new business models for the ongoing transition to open access.

Stefan Kendzierskyj

Affiliate Senior Associate

Stefan Kendzierskyj has an extensive background in commercial, consulting, and strategic leadership, holding senior and executive-level positions with technology solution-led companies servicing the publishing, fintech, government, and cybersecurity sectors.

After working a number of years as senior business development in financial accountancy software and database systems industries, he moved into the publishing sector. There he managed government clients and grew new business as a risk publisher for The Stationery Office (part of Williams Lea), leading high-profile projects for the Home Office, Foreign Office, MoD, and large bid tenders. He deployed a number of successful digital initiatives at TSO. Subsequently, Stefan moved to the software vendor side of the industry as Executive Vice President for Sales with the digital transformation company, Impelsys Inc. Over the next 10 years, he built and managed the EMEA/APAC regional sales team, executing P&L, forecasting and budget, responsibilities alongside achieving high revenue growth, extensive regional development, and winning/implementing multi-million Euro digital transformation deals.

Post Impelsys, Stefan has undertaken publishing and Web3 projects including iGaming, blockchain, and cybersecurity – and led (as a senior consultant) many publishing discovery phases, market research/analysis, and strategic selling initiatives.

He holds a master’s degree in Cybersecurity and is an accomplished author in emerging technology subjects, such as blockchain, self-sovereign identity, AI, cyber warfare, and cyberattacks/threats – with published works through Springer, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, IGI, and World Scientific.

Jason Cooper

Affiliate Senior Associate

Jason is a highly regarded, cross-functional consultant with over 20 years’ experience in all aspects of publishing. He has conceived of and led several innovative D2C ventures from ideas to thriving operations in corporate and entrepreneurial settings. As a result, he has a particular specialism in opportunity based commercial analysis and the financial modelling, operational design, strategic marketing and growth of new businesses. He was also for a time an IP development and licensing sales specialist, working across all media and global markets.

As Chief Operating and Commercial Officer of innovative publishing start-up Unbound, he provided the practical strategy and support to grow an early-stage concept into an award-winning team able to raise several million in investment and deliver a profitable business model. This involved the hands-on leadership of the finance, marketing, editorial, HR, product development, editorial, sales, marketing, production and distribution functions. He has been identified with a period of growth and innovation at the literary publishing house, Faber and Faber, where, as Digital and New Business Director, he contributed substantially to record results through the development of several award-winning digital products, new D2C services, strategic partnerships and through the growth of their licensing activities. This is where he first became involved in Academic publishing, working with Bloomsbury to build Drama Onlineand scoping Faber’s own entry into this sector.  During this time he also secured an executive MBA with merit at Warwick Business School, where he focused on publishing and media strategy and practice.

Prior to this, Jason was a senior commissioning editor at Pan Macmillan where he published non-fiction and fiction for the Macmillan and Picador imprints. His list included several New York Times bestsellers and included the first book published on Google, trade works by respected academics, pop-culture and ground-breaking literary fiction. “Jason worked with us at Bonnier Books UK as a consultant on our digital business strategy. Throughout the process, he was an invaluable advisor and trusted member of our team. During each stage of the project, Jason collaborating in unison with our team, whilst demonstrating his meticulous approach to research and data-gathering. The reporting he delivered was brilliant – clear and articulate – and an invaluable resource for us as a business as we look forwards to our next stage of growth.” – Perminder Mann, CEO Bonnier UK, 2020

Andrea Eastman-Mullins

Affiliate Senior Associate

Andrea is a digital publishing and e-learning professional with over 25 years of experience in all aspects of aggregated collections for teaching and research. In executive and product management roles for ProQuest, Alexander Street Press, Chadwyck-Healey, and SIRS, she developed over 300 library databases including the first streaming video and audio collections for academic libraries. Most recently, Andrea launched West End Learning, a new business providing services and products to accelerate the adoption of OER and affordable learning resources.

Andrea is interested in improving access to education through open pedagogy, libraries, and archives. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Michigan in Higher Education Administration with a focus on Instructional Design. Her graduate work included research on the peer review process of MERLOT.org, one of the first aggregations of digital learning objects. Andrea also led faculty development initiatives statewide with the University of North Carolina’s Teaching and Learning with Technology Collaborative.

At ProQuest, Andrea was Vice President, Product Management for an $80M product line used globally in K-12, higher education, and public libraries. Prior to her work with ProQuest, Andrea was COO with Alexander Street, leading strategic planning and execution of all publishing plans. Andrea oversaw the Production, Software Development, and Human Resources departments including a staff of 50+ and all product budgets. She was a key member of the Executive Team that grew the business from $5M to $30M before it sold to ProQuest.

Andrea has been a speaker at Charleston, ER&L, UKSG, MLA, and EDUCAUSE and was interviewed for articles on OER in Against the Grain and Research Information.

Sarah Bartlett

Affiliate Senior Associate

Sarah is self-employed and works in the areas of content strategy, copywriting and proofreading. She specialises in libraries and technology, but offers experience across a range of business-to-business sectors.

Sarah produces full content strategies as well as standalone recommendations in areas such as tone of voice and persona research. She writes a range of materials, both online and print, and her regular clients include OCLC. She is also a freelance medical editor and proofreader for McCann Health.

Sarah’s career started in IT, before she made a career change into librarianship. She spent five years managing special libraries in the metals industry. Following this, Sarah moved to Talis, then a UK library software vendor. There she combined her library and IT skills in business analysis, product management and content marketing roles.

In 2011 she left Talis to set up her freelance copywriting and content marketing business. Between 2015 and 2017, she worked as a Senior Editorial Manager for Tomorrow People, an award-winning business-to-business digital marketing agency. She produced content strategies for global and national B2B brands in a range of sectors. She also devised editorial calendars and managed the outsourcing of content production to a team of freelance writers.

Mark Purvis

Affiliate Senior Associate, Publishing and Open Access

Mark has spent the last 30 years in scholarly and b2b publishing, specialising in delivering product and portfolio growth in challenging and changing markets. Most recently, he has been focused on finding solutions to the challenges of open access in the scholarly publishing market. He was the OA lead at IOP Publishing where he was responsible for bringing open access right into the heart of the organisation. He has experience in a very broad range of open access business models, including consortial models like SCOAP3 and transformative agreements. He launched a new portfolio of fully gold OA journals at IOP and also played a major role in developing IOP’s open access and open data policies.

He started his career at Elsevier editing scientific journals and managing peer review before spending more than 15 years helping to build Elsevier’s magazine and newsletter publishing division during the transition to digital publication. His expertise lies in enabling teams to produce high quality and profitable editorial products that meet the needs of their customers, whether those customers are researchers, readers, editors, societies, librarians or funders. He relishes finding practical solutions to challenging problems and has worked with staff, customers and partners from every corner of the world.

Rachel Middlewick

Affiliate Senior Associate

Rachel has worked in publishing since 2000. After initially specialising in subscriptions marketing and international trade marketing at Haymarket Media Group, she moved into central publishing roles, eventually running a portfolio of B2C and B2B brands in the outdoor leisure market. In 2018 she was responsible for driving a digital product development strategy to improve relevance for new audiences and to deliver new revenue streams.

Alongside the path in owned media Rachel has also spent 10 years in content marketing running and retaining high value accounts and delivering multimedia content strategies for brands across the retail, sport, automotive, education and membership body sectors. She developed go to market positioning and marketing strategy for a leading Agency and focused on future proofing and optimising agency services, alongside driving new business, in her position as Strategy Director.

Most recently she has focused on business transformation. First at PA Media as Chief Commercial Officer where she led a £30m portfolio and developed and implemented an end to end data strategy which allowed the business to understand the different trading conditions and behaviour of each customer segment for the first time. She restructured sales teams accordingly, aligned marketing strategy – auditing and refreshing the customer journey and launching new go to market positioning – delivering budget busting revenues along the way.

She is currently working as a consultant including a project to support the largest East African news media publisher integrate its TV, print and digital newsrooms and adopt digital-first working practices. She has used her organisational design and leadership experience to full capacity!

Peter Harden

Affiliate Senior Associate

Peter is a multi-talented publishing professional who has over 30 years of experience in educational and trade publishing.

For the last ten years, Peter served as the Managing Director of York Press, known in the UK for its leading series of Study Guides for GCSE and A Level; and internationally for a number of school courses in ELT, Maths & Science for MENA Ministries of Education. From 2018, in partnership with Pearson, Peter sat on the management board of Project Sphinx in Egypt: Pearson’s largest single online assessment project. Peter also managed the development of York-E: a school-focused LMS now installed in hundreds of Egyptian schools.

Founded in 1991, Peter’s original publishing project – Harden’s – was one of the first UK businesses to use the collation of User Generated Content to source content and remains a leading brand amongst UK restaurant guides today. Over its thirty years in operation, it has had marketing partnerships with many top consumer brands – Rémy Martin, Champagne Mumm, Spa Natural Mineral Water – and content partnerships with media brands such as The Sunday Times, The Observer and the Evening Standard. The business has evolved in recent times to incorporate an innovative subscription-driven loyalty scheme.

The skills Peter brings to Maverick from positions in senior management to early-stage start-up range from strategic consultancy and financial modelling to the nitty gritty of project management, digital development and print production to the nuts and bolts of marketing, PR and social media management

Duncan Enright

Affiliate Senior Associate

Duncan has spent more than 30 years in STM and professional publishing, delivering growth as a publishing and marketing director in both large multinational and professional society settings.

Most recently, Duncan has led Evidence-based Networks Ltd, a specialist publisher in healthcare, delivering major World Bank projects in Central Asia and winning multiple awards for books in the field of oncology. Previously he was the Publishing Director at the British National Formulary (BNF), the leading healthcare reference in the world and a joint venture between the BMJ Group, Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. His responsibilities included the migration to digital forms, a new contract with the UK NHS, and international growth including the launch of the New Zealand Formulary.

Duncan has published in a wide range of academic and professional markets including medicine, engineering, business and management, science and technology. In all of these he has championed the development of publishing strategies that put the professional community at the heart, using their expertise to sift key evidence and decide on best practice; then using the best publishing tools to bring the right information to the appropriate point in the professional workflow to allow better decisions.

As a marketing director at Elsevier for many years Duncan oversaw the growth of digital marketing and championed the role of sales and channel promotions, as well as developing direct and non-traditional ways to reach readers. At the BNF he worked closely with sales colleagues to develop licensing options using XML as the basis for apps and embedded content use.

Duncan’s expertise lies in spotting opportunities for growth, working with stakeholders in a profession to create a new offering, finding and working with the right authors and organisations, deciding on the right way to bring the information to the professional workflow, moving from print to digital forms by using the best new publishing technologies, and winning professionals over to new knowledge products.

Jemma Macfadyen

Affiliate Senior Associate

Jemma has 22 years’ business management and product development experience in the B2B online information industry through senior management roles at Thomson Reuters, Gartner and LexisNexis UK and more recently, through strategic and consulting engagements for large online information and software vendors.  Jemma founded Spinnaker Consulting in 2008, a small, successful and well-networked consultancy.

At Thomson Reuters, Jemma was responsible for a range of online, software and advisory services including Consult GEE, online information subscription services for the UK regulatory market.  Jemma delivered a completed online product overhaul including usability testing, detailed market research and an accessibility audit. Previous to Thomson Reuters Jemma was at LexisNexis, managing and delivering a range of editorial projects then later heading up the development of online products and services. In addition, Jemma has experience of successfully setting up and delivering strategic partnerships and revenue generating initiatives.

Jemma specialises at the customer and markets end of qualitative research, delivering insight for market planning, segmentation, growth strategies, go-to-market tactics, new online product development and competitive intelligence. She  excels at getting to grips with projects and markets quickly and in not just delivering PowerPoint but real, executable outcomes that drive commercial results for clients. Jemma has a first class degree and a scholarship from the University of Manchester.

Alison Jones

Affiliate Senior Associate

Alison Jones is a business coach, consultant and independent publisher. She is passionate about supporting people and books that make a difference.

She has enjoyed a prestigious 22-year career in trade and scholarly publishing working with major publishers such as Chambers Harrap, Reader’s Digest, Oxford University Press and Macmillan, most recently as Director of Innovation Strategy for Palgrave Macmillan. Throughout her career she has pioneered digital publishing of reference works, ebooks and apps, delivering award-winning online products such as The Statesman’s Yearbook Online and Palgrave Connect.

In 2014 she left Macmillan to set up Alison Jones Business Services and establish a new model: position, or brand, publishing. She works with entrepreneurs wanting to build their brand and take their business to the next level, focusing on clarifying the strategic purpose for the book, coordinating content creation and publication with core business activities, and creating superb books with professional, polished editorial and production standards under the imprint Practical Inspiration Publishing. She also offers consulting and training services to traditional publishers and societies, especially those seeking to diversify and/or upskill their workforce.

A trained small business and corporate coach, she combines extensive publishing expertise with coaching, facilitation and training skills. Her focus is on business strategy, content marketing, innovation and digital publishing.

Janice Kuta

Affiliate Associate (USA)
Janice is a highly respected STM and scholarly publishing industry executive with over 25 years experience. She has worked for both global commercial and not- profit organizations, with a proven a track record for generating profits & surplus, successful in sales, marketing, strategic planning, change management and new business development.

She has a proven ability in developing business partnerships, strategic alliances and branding initiatives, with broad experience in online, digital, web-based products and services. Janice brings a high energy, hands-on approach with excellent cross-cultural communication, team-building and problem-solving skills.

Acting as consultant, Janice was Director of Membership for the International Association of STM Publishers and Marketing & Event Director of Books for Development.  She has held Executive and Senior Vice President positions at Classical International, Macmillan Online Publishing, Palgrave Macmillan, AIP Press and Blackwell Publishers. Janice also served as Chair of AAP/PSP’s Executive Committee and has participated as speaker and moderator at many industry events.

Mark Lane

Affiliate Associate Partner

Mark began his career in magazine and book publishing, where he worked for twelve years, progressing to become General Manager and Publisher responsible for the launching and/or profitability of both magazines and directories (alongside numerous conferences and newsletters). Since March 1988 he has worked as a consultant offering coaching, management training, organisation development consultancy and group facilitation for a wide range of organisations including banks, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, publishers, societies and exhibition organisers.

As part of his MBA, which focused on strategic management issues and organisational development, he undertook a research project on UK business publishing and the World Wide Web.

In addition to training he has been involved in a range of consultancy projects including organisational change and Sales + Marketing team development; Executive Coaching; M+A integration; and executive recruitment.

Recent clients include: London Stock Exchange, Institute of Physics, Elsevier, Lexis Nexis, Costar, FTSE, Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), Springer Nature, Thomson Reuters.

Nancy MacCreery

Affiliate Associate, Marketing and Market Research (USA)
Nancy is a business-oriented marketing professional whose diverse career spans strategic marketing, product and business development for both B2B and consumer products. She has an in-depth knowledge of all the facets of effective marketing strategies and understands the processes needed to create, facilitate and drive the implementation of practical, innovative marketing solutions.

Her industry experience gives her insights into healthcare and professional services as well as e-books and publishing. Nancy implemented groundbreaking market research and digital campaigns for Ingram Digital (VitalSource Technologies) and has developed newsletters and white papers for major publishers. Nancy has worked for both large and small organizations, co-founded, supported and built successful small businesses, and is a life-long continual learner. This diverse background gives her a unique understanding of the challenges in maximizing business resources and priorities.

Her educational foundation is an engineering undergraduate degree complemented by an MBA from Michigan State University; she is the author of several books as well as numerous business publications.

Nancy holds certifications in: Idea and Innovation Management (North Carolina State University); Practical Product Management (Pragmatic Marketing); Inbound Marketing (HubSpot)

Donna Sanzone

Affiliate Associate
Donna brings to Maverick more than 30 years of executive-level experience in academic, reference, educational, and trade publishing, specializing in strategic planning, new product development/management, publisher/partner relations, and the transition from print to digital for both commercial and not-for-profit companies and organizations. Over the course of her successful career, she has provided the vision as well as strategic direction for many publishers, often working in close collaboration with educational/cultural institutions and scholarly societies (for instance, the Getty Art History Information Program, Smithsonian Institution, and the American Studies Association).  Her background and extensive experience have given her unique insight into the business requisites of commercial publishers as well as the mission of scholarly/not-for-profit organizations, resulting in the development and execution of successful, high-quality, market-driven, and profitable products and programs for a wide range of publishers and organizations.

Career highlights include:  Executive Editor at Macmillan Reference (developing and implementing large-scale reference/academic programs); Editor in Chief at Grolier Academic Publishing (developing and managing a new Grolier division of academic print and digital products); Executive Editor at HarperCollins (creating and directing the joint Smithsonian-Collins imprint); VP of new product development at M.E. Sharpe (developing, implementing, and distributing new digital products and academic databases); and Consultant/Project Manager at Choice/Association of College and Research Libraries (developing and managing a new review database).

Michael Ross

Affiliate Senior Associate
Michael Ross is the President/Founder of Ross & Associates LLC, an educational publishing and technology consultancy. R&A’s clients are based in the U.S., U.K., the Middle East, and Asia, and comprise nonprofits, private equity firms, publishers, content developers, universities, marketers, and corporations.

Before establishing Ross & Associates in 2017, Michael was the SVP and Education GM at Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., where he led the sales and marketing activities in North America and EMEA and ran the product development and technology teams. He led the expansion of the company’s institutional products and databases in the K-12 and higher education channels. Prior to joining Britannica in 2002, he was the EVP and Publisher of World Book, Inc. and previously held executive positions at other global publishing companies. He began his career as an editor for Time-Life Books, including three years in Tokyo.

Michael’s products and publications have had worldwide circulation, have generated substantial revenue over decades, and have won the highest industry awards, including: The Distinguished Achievement and the Golden Lamp Awards from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP/AAP), and the Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) prestigious Codie Award.

Michael has written and spoken extensively on digital publishing and educational technology. In addition to articles in textbooks, journals, and blog posts, he has authored three books, most recently Dealing with Disruption: Lessons from the Publishing Industry (2016, Routledge). He has been a keynote speaker at global conferences such as: The Licensing Executive Society; the Hammond Organization; Book Expo America; BookTech; The London Book Fair; SIIA; the Shanghai Book Fair; and the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Michael was inducted into the PrintMedia Production Executives’ Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Association of Educational Publishers’ Hall of Fame in 2009. He has served on several boards, including the Board of Directors of the Association of Educational Publishers, and one year as president.

Michael holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota; an M.A. from Brandeis University; and a certificate from Stanford University’s Advanced Management College.

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