THIS WEEK
There’s an expanded list for the latest instalment of the Bookseller 100; it is now a 150, to shine a light on broader areas of the trade in which individuals are proving their mettle
The Lead Story The Bookseller 150
The Bookseller 150 Expanded list shows leadership of all kinds
Tom Tivnan @tomtivnan
Y
ou might notice that the Bookseller 100—our annual list of the book industry’s top leaders, innovators and decision makers—is a litle plumper this year. And no, that is not because we’ve been hoovering up a lot of mince pies. We have expanded to a Bookseller 150 this year, partially to salute parts of the trade whose influence is difficult to measure but is no less important. A book designer, for exam- ple, may have a transformative impact on a list, but it may be hard to put them ahead of, say, a far more visible publisher of an imprint. On that point, incidentally, why do other publishers not copy Dialogue Books—whose boss Sharmaine Lovegrove makes the 150 (see p17)—and have a page of “end credits”, like in films? I, for one, would love to see who designed the cover, who edited the copy, and who worked on the marketing and publicit... I digress. To address these areas, we have expanded to cover 150 people this year and we have grouped the entries by roles, which has enabled us to flag up some folk that would not have ordinarily made the list.
Changing times What is interesting about this year’s 150 is that it shines a light on a how the nature of leader- ship is changing in the book industry. Jo Howard, whose managing consulting role for trade and consumer publishing at Mosaic Executive means she is involved in the recruitment of those in senior roles, says she has seen a vast shiſt in what leadership means in publishing in her 13 years in the job.
TheBookseller.com
MICHAEL SCHMIDT’S INCLUSION IN THE LIST IS ‘LONG OVERDUE’
She explains: “When I first started, the brief was mostly to get someone who was strategic and commercially astute. That’s just the base- line today. They have to entrepreneurial, they have to be able to think internationally. And yes, they have to be digitally savvy, but there is more nuance to what that means—you can’t just think about technology, but how that tech is used by people to buy and consume content. It’s very tempting to look outside the industry for those digital skills, but people already within the trade have them, too, and know how to apply them to books.”
15
Evergreens feature in The Bookseller 150
50%
This year’s list is 50% female—the highest figure to date
9.7%
Of the list are from a BAME background
The way book trade businesses and cultures are being changed and re-shaped—think David Shelley’s Hachete, or Anthony Forbes Watson’s Pan Macmillan, for example—means companies are keen for a 21st-century- stle leader. Howard says: “It is not an old- fashioned, top-down managerial stle. It is
We have expanded to a Bookseller 150 this year, partially to salute parts of the trade whose influence is difficult to measure but is no less important
about listening to staff, about being truly collaborative, while still having a compelling strategic vision.”
With 150 members there are, unsurpris-
ingly, a record number of new faces on the list: 51. In the long-overdue department is Carcanet’s Michael Schmidt, who in 2019 celebrated 50 years as being arguably Britain’s most important poetry publisher. This year, as always, we have selected “blind”, basing choices solely on merit. The demographic shake-out shows 50% of the list are women (there are actually 154 people here, owning to joint entries); and 9.7% come from a BAME background. Both figures are not really cheering—though both percentages are up year on year, and it’s the first time we have had a 50:50 gender split—but probably accurately reflects senior roles in the trade. There are also 15 “evergreens”, who have been on every list since we started in 2009. Lastly, we have once again awarded a de
facto person of the year (this year called the 151st, rather than the 101st). To find out who it is, see page 25.
Contributors to the Bookseller 150 include Caroline Carpenter, Kiera O’Brien, Philip Jones, Katherine Cowdrey, Danny Arter and Benedicte Page.
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