18th July 2025 Rising Stars 29
This year’s Shooting Star
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Hennah Sandhu Orion
Hennah Sandhu has been in marketing for less than two years – working across Orion’s 10 imprints following a four- year stint on Collins’ business development team – but she has made her mark. Highlights include two Book Marketing Society awards, one for best debut campaign for SA MacLean’s The Phoenix Keeper, the other a creativity gong for her work in steering Joe Lycett’s Art Hole to market. Sandhu has been promoted twice to reach her current role of marketing manager. She has promoted diversity and inclusion and has co-chaired Hachette’s Thrive and HarperCollins’ Elevate networks and at Collins spearheaded, with Alex Beecroft, the division’s D&I policy. She says: “I hope the industry becomes reflective of the society we’re living in, both in terms of representation of those working in the industry and of authors who are published.” Also a writer, she has been shortlisted for the PMJ Undiscovered Writers’ Prize in 2023/2024 and bagged this year’s Jane Gregory Bursary at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.
Kelly Smith Zaffre
Zaffre editorial director Kelly Smith launched her new SFF imprint in May last year with Mai Corland’s instant bestseller Five Broken Blades (launched with three special editions and a subscription box nod) and has followed that up with a string of hits. The Bonnier imprint has recently launched fan community Zaffre Dawn and Smith’s plans for the list are underpinned “by continuing to champion authors from a range of different backgrounds”. Smith joined Bonnier in 2021 – after six years moving up the editorial ranks at Allison & Busby – to boost the crime/thriller list and did just that, launching new voices (moving Countdown legend Susie Dent to fiction), managing mega- brands (particularly a revamp of Lynda La Plante’s backlist) and commissioning IP projects (The Twelve Days of Murder, Murder at the Christmas Emporium). There is much to look forward to in the year ahead, including expansion of the SFF side and working with Vaseem Khan and Ian Fleming Publications on a James Bond spin-off centring on Q (“the perfect blend of Slow Horses and Richard Osman”).
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Features
Rising Stars
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