Image: Frankfurter Buchmesse, Alexander Heimann
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Strategic Developments’
The CEOs of Simon & Schuster and Les éditions Albin Michel have been announced today (July 26) as Frankfurt Book Fair’s annual CEO Talk speakers on October 11 at 2 p.m. in Room Dimension, Hall 4.2.Carolyn Reidy and Guillaume Dervieux will take questions from France’s Livres Hebdo, China’s Bookdao, the UK’s The Bookseller, Germany’s buchreport, Brazil’s PublishNews, and the USA’s Publishers Weekly.
The annual event is a chance to hear from one or more leading figures in the international industry’s executive suites. Its media participants are those who provide co-publication to Rüdiger Wischenbart‘s “Global Ranking of the Publishing Industry,” which is produced by Livres Hebdo and has been updated yearly since 2007.
Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos will, as is the tradition, open the discussion with the two CEOs. The hour is expected to include, according to organizers, “strategic developments in international publishing, in particular the intrinsic relevance of books and publishers in today’s global context of media competition, as well as the transformation of audiences and their cultural practices.”
Guillaume Dervieux. Image: Olivier Dion
Dervieux’s comments may be particularly interesting to many, as France is Guest of Honor at Frankfurt Book Fair (October 11-15) with its Francfort en français program. Dervieux has held the role of vice-president and CEO of the Albin Michel group since 2012. He is also president of three divisions–educational publishing, trade distribution, and bookshops.
Having entered publishing at Wolters Kluwer’s Editions Lamy, Vivendi Universal Publishing’s Editions Masson, and Vivendi Net, he was named Hachette’s Armand Colin general manager in 2003.
Publishing house Albin Michel was founded in 1900 and today publishes more than 1,000 each year in 12 imprints. Among authors published by the company: Amélie Nothomb, Pierre Lemaitre, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Katerine Pancol, Yasmina Reza, Bernard Werber, and Jean-Christophe Grangé.
Carolyn Reidy. Image: David Jacobs
Leading Simon & Schuster as its president and CEO since 2008, Reidy’s purview extends to the New York-based company’s interests in Australia, India, the UK, and Canada. She initially was the company’s trade division president, taking that role in 1992, before being named to lead the adult publishing group.
Key authors published under Reidy’s tenure by S&S, one of the United States’ “big five” publishers, include Anthony Doerr, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Frank McCourt, David McCullough, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jaycee Dugard, Walter Isaacson, Bruce Springsteen Jeannette Walls, Bob Woodward, and many more.
Registration for this event is available by email to gruen@book-fair.com .
Last year’s CEO Talk featured Jacob Dalborg, CEO of Bonnier Books.