People Round-Up, Early December 2015

PEOPLE

Don Weisberg is now President at Macmillan, reporting to John Sargent and responsible for the management of Macmillan’s US trade publishing houses, the audio and podcast businesses, and the trade sales organization. He was President of Penguin Young Readers Group. Succeeding him as President is Jen Loja, previously SVP, Associate Publisher of PYRG.

Dan Verdick was name Director of National Sales at Bookmasters. He was previously VP, National Accounts for Children’s Plus.

Hilary Redmon is now Executive Editor at Random House. She was Executive Editor at Ecco.

Caitlin Ellis left her position as Manager, Domestic Rights at HarperCollins to move to Boston. She can be reached at Caitlin.ann.ellis@gmail.com.

Michael Harnaga-Rentas is now Director of Sales and Inventory Analysis at Perseus Books Group. He was previously CFO at Skyhorse.

Pamela Schecter is now Publishing Manager at The Experiment. She was formerly Production Director at Black Dog & Leventhal.

Beth Sochacki joined Sourcebooks as Marketing and Publicity Manager of the Casablanca imprint. She was most recently Associate Consultant at Douglas Shaw & Associates.

Jade Roth was name SVP, Strategy & Content at Flat World Knowledge. She was previously VP, Books, Digital Strategy and Chief Product Officer at Barnes & Noble Booksellers. Additionally, Bill Barke has joined the company as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was formerly Chairman of Pearson Higher Education.

Emma Boyer joined Zest Books as Publicity Manager. She was Publicist at Algonquin.

Christopher Rhodes is now Agent at The Stuart Agency. He was previously Agent at the James Fitzgerald Agency.

Jennifer Stokes returned to Kids Can Press as Editor after leaving the company to pursue freelance work.

Rina Ranalli joined Chicago Humanities Festival as Authors Group Program Manager. She was Authors Group Program Manager at Union League Club of Chicago.

Dennis Drabelle has retired from his position as Mysteries and Thrillers Editor at the Washington Post after 31 years at the paper.

Ksenia Winnicki has returned to Macmillan as Senior Publicist at Tor Books. She was most recently Publicist at Simon & Schuster Children’s, and previously worked at Macmillan Children’s.

Anna Dobben joined Knopf as Publicist. She was Publicity Assistant at Basic Books.

Vicki Lansky will retire from the parenting and household publisher Book Peddlers in January. Her assistant Dian Schwarze will become the new Publisher and Owner, while Lansky will act as Consultant to the company.

Stan Jantz is now Executive Director of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association after serving as the Interim Director.

PROMOTIONS

Kobo promoted Michael Tamblyn to CEO, effective January 2016, as well as Vice Executive Manager of the Rakuten Global Ebook Business, which includes Overdrive and Aquafadas.

Jennifer Abel Kovitz was promoted to Associate Publisher and Director of Marketing at Catapult. Additionally, Julie Buntin was promoted to Director of Writing Programs.

Filipe Silva was promoted to Associate Director, Latin American and Spanish-language sales at Penguin Random House.

Perseus Books Group promoted Leslie Jobson to Senior Manager, Field Sales and Louisa Brody to Senior Manager, Group Marketing.

Rachel Krupitsky was promoted to Senior Marketing Manager of literary fiction at Open Road Integrated Media.

Sourcebooks promoted Brad Hentz to Ecommerce Operations Manager, Anna Michels to Editor, and Liz Otte to National Accounts Manager, Gift and Regional.

At Kids Can Press, Jennifer Grimbleby was promoted to Managing Editor and Olga Kidisevic to Production Editor.

Jaida Temperly was promoted to Agent at New Leaf Literary & Media.

Gerrie Lipson Sturman was promoted to Agent at Goldfarb & Associates.

DULY NOTED

Perseus Books Group will handle the print and digital distribution for Harvard Business Review.

Author Cornelia Funke’s independent publishing house Breathing Books reached a sales and distribution agreement with Publishers Group West for the US and Canada.