This week’s spotlight is on two speakers whose participation is thanks to two of PANZ larger publishing members: Penguin Random House’s assistance brings Briony Lewis here and Hachette has contributed to Justin Ractliffe’s visit.
Briony Lewis, General Counsel for Penguin Random House, APAC will be delivering the Key Note Session Legal 101 – What Every Publisher Needs to Know on Thursday Afternoon. This will be an essential briefing coming just before Nicky Hager and Robbie Burton’s discussion Publish and Be Damned!
Briony is a corporate lawyer with extensive experience in private practice and corporate environments with a focus on intellectual property, corporate governance and commercial law. She has worked as a General Counsel within a book retail business and was formerly the General Counsel for Pearson Australia. She currently leads the legal, contracts, royalties and rights teams and is passionate about books and reading.
Justin Ractliffe, Managing Director: Marketing, Publicity & Australian Publishing at Hachette Australia will deliver the Key Note Session A Brand is Forever! Building Brand Equity and Sustained Competitive Advantage on Friday morning.
Justin started his career in publishing at Walker Books Australia as an Account Manager and subsequently worked as Publicist & Promotions Manager. He left Walker for Random House Australia and started there as a publicist before becoming the Sales & Marketing Manager for Children’s & YA books – under that title he ran many successful and award winning campaigns.
Justin’s final position at RHA before coming to Hachette Australia was Head of Digital Marketing. At HA he was Sales & Marketing Director for the Hodder & Headline division before becoming Marketing & Publicity Director for Hachette Australia when it restructured in late 2013. In September 2014 he was appointed Joint Managing Director with a specific brief to manage publicity, sales and local publishing. He is the author of the children’s picture book DADS: A Field Guide and has a Masters of Marketing degree from the University of New South Wales.
This week the spotlight is on two speakers whose participation is thanks to PANZ sponsors: Creative New Zealand’s Te Manu Ka Tau programme enables Diana Broccardo to be here while Education New Zealand’s sponsorship brings David O’Brien to our shores.
Diana Broccardo, a Profile Books Executive board member will be delivering the Key Note Session How an Independent Publisher Conquered the High Street and joining the panel for Channels to Export Markets: Which Should we Choose?
Diana manages the commercial departments of sales, marketing, publicity and art for Profile Books which includes Serpent’s Tail, acquired in 2007 and Third Millennium Information, acquired in 2015. She previously worked at Hodder and Stoughton, Faber & Faber and Orion Publishing.
Profile Books was founded on April fool’s Day in 1996 to publish stimulating non-fiction in a wide range of fields, including history, business and economics, science and biography, with a sprinkling of humour. A fiction list was added with the purchase of Serpent’s Tail in 2007.
Profile has three ambitions: publish great books, run a good business and have fun. It is one of the UK’s leading independents and won Independent Publisher of the Year in 2015.
Bestsellers over the years have included Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss (more than 3 million copies sold worldwide) and the New Scientist ‘Last Word’ series, which has sold over 2.5 million copies to date. Bestselling authors include Mary Beard, Alan Bennett, Simon Garfield, Francis Fukuyama, Simon Jenkins, and Atul Gawande. Profile is also proud to of its collaborations with The Economist, Wellcome Collection and Oxfam.
In 2007 Profile acquired Serpent’s Tail, a company that publishes highly distinctive award-winning international fiction such as Karen Joy Fowler’s Man Booker Prize shortlisted We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and Orange Prize winner We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver and Adrian McKinty.
David O’Brien, Vice President, Schools Division at Cengage Australia will be taking the Workshop Lessons and Trends from Australia and joining the Education New Zealand breakfast for educational publishers on Friday. David has spent the last 28 years in publishing having started his career in Chartered Accountancy. He was a CA for over 20 years (mostly concurrent with his publishing roles).
David is responsible for the revenue achievement and profitability of the School division (K-12, primary and secondary) in Australia. David oversees the development and application of strategic and business initiatives for the Schools division. He has direct responsibility over the publishing, marketing and sales functions for both Primary and Secondary.
David joined Cengage Learning in January 2008 as the General Manager of its School division. He was promoted to Vice President, School division in December 2010. Prior to joining Cengage, David held several chief executive positions: Managing Director of Harcourt Education (1999-2007), Managing Director of Thomson Information (1997-1999, based in Singapore) and CEO of a Thomson Legal company known as CPD – Centre for Professional Development (1988-1997).
From April 2008 to April 2012, David was a Director of the Australian Publishers Association. Over that time his involvement also included serving on the Schools Committee of the APA. He has been active in committee work and in submissions on behalf of the APA to government and government bodies particularly over issues of Parallel Importation, Copyright protection and the Book Industry Strategy Group.
In the weeks running up to Conference which will be held on Thursday 30th June and Friday 1st July, PANZ News will be spotlighting speakers in each issue. This week we are pleased to highlight our key note opening and closing speakers: Jo Lusby, Managing Director of Penguin Random House (North Asia) and Kathy Hurley, CEO of Girls Thinking Global.
Jo Lusby will be beginning the conference with the opening key note Small Beginnings, Big Markets and she will be a panellist for the workshop Channels to Export Markets. Jo joined the company that is now Penguin Random House in 2005, and has established offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul.
She oversees local publishing in the English, Chinese, and Korean languages, as well as the sale of imported books from the US and UK from her base in Hong Kong.
Jo was responsible for publishing a market-leading list of books on and from China in English, including Frog by Nobel Laureate Mo Yan, Midnight in Peking by Paul French, Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, and Massage by Bi Feiyu. In the Chinese language, Penguin Random House co-publishes major names such as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and tennis sensation Li Na, as well as global brands such as the Penguin Classics, Peter Rabbit, Ladybird, and Peppa Pig.
A prominent member of the China’s creative business community, Jo is a regular public speaker on a range of subjects including digital transformation, brand and marketing, and regulatory issues for media companies.
Prior to joining Penguin Random House, Jo spent five years with Swiss publishing group Ringier, working as editor-in-chief of English language magazines and custom publishing. Originally from the UK, she has lived in Asia for twenty years. She currently works to support PEN Myanmar on projects in Yangon, is an advisor to the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, and a board member of the China-Britain Business Council, as well as a PADI Scuba Dive Master.
Kathy Hurley will be closing the conference with the final key note Leadership and Diversity and she will be joining Emma House of the UK Publishers Association for the workshop Transitioning Content from Print to Digital.
Kathy is a 40+ year veteran of the education industry. In December 2014 Kathy retired from Pearson where she spent ten years and served as Executive Vice President Education Alliances, for the Pearson Foundation. She remains active in the education industry as a consultant, sharing her wealth of knowledge in both publishing and technology with companies, non-profits and associations. In her spare time Kathy is busy preparing her next speech or connecting people to support the vision of global education for all.
Throughout her career in the education industry Kathy has served in top positions in both publishing and technology companies, which includes executive positions with Pearson and IBM. She utilizes her expertise in education policy, sales, marketing and business development to help further the work of top businesses, executive level customers, associations and foundations.
Kathy is based in Washington, D.C., where she works closely with education associations. Her work throughout the years with various businesses and organizations has taken Kathy around the world and into countries such as, India, Australia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, France, Finland, Argentina, Indonesia, and Cuba.
She is sought after to speak and participate as a thought leader and her global commitment and wealth of knowledge helps organizations develop new and innovative approaches to education. In 2013, Kathy was selected as a Fellow of the Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) at Harvard University for 2014. Upon completing the ALI at Harvard, Kathy co-founded a global non-profit organization called Girls Thinking Global, which has as its mission to connect global change makers to educate and empower adolescent girls around the world.