San Diego County, California, United States
With broad and deep experience in Publishing, in both Trade and preK-5 Education, I am a proven and successful leader and learner who is energetic and passionate about solving problems and delivering results. My career arc has ranged from corporate to private ownership, from commercial to academic settings, from established businesses to those in transition to start-ups. I have an established track record and offer expertise in generating revenue, market share, and profit growth, as well as exceeding targets. I’ve directed high performance in: organizational effectiveness; public relations, marketing, and packaging; content acquisition, development, and product workflows, and multi-platform deliveries; negotiation; multi-stakeholder partnerships across industry, among authors, agents, booksellers, educators, media, et al. My key competencies would include: strong communication and analytic skills; organizational leadership and general management; recruiting, mentoring, and motivating staff; an extensive B2B and B2C background, with a wide network of industry contacts; strategy and business development; public relations and branding; launching new products, new initiatives; developing strong teams that maximize the value of intellectual property.
Have delivered expertise and successful performance as Advisor, Strategy Consultant, Interim Manager for Projects and Ventures, including: * SpoonRead, Inc, serve as Strategic Advisor for innovative reading platform, now sold that motivates student readers, assesses engagement and comprehension, and raises more money than traditional fundraisers * Gakken Plus Co, Ltd. and Downtown Bookworks, formulated publishing strategy/planning, helped direct sales and marketing for joint venture launching acclaimed Japanese activity/workbook program into the North American market. * Lab4U.co, led business development; planned strategy for innovative start-up utilizing mobile devices to improve U.S. K-12+ science education in physics, chemistry, and biology. Craft sales efforts to teachers, schools, and administrators. * Whooo'sReading.org, delivered strategic and operational support to online platform empowering educators and encouraging student independent reading in K-12 market. * Scholastic Inc, researched and assessed the K-8 Writing Instruction marketplace. Supported the Education Group sales team. * Reading & Writing Project/Teacher's College, Columbia U.--Heinemann Publishers, helped optimize K-8 Literacy/PD publishing. * Mobilelearningnetworks.com, supported expansion of innovative online math tutoring enterprise. * Learn2Earn.org, strategic advisor for K-12 reading program fundraising venture. * Beckon Books, target launch of custom publishing program to college/university market. * The Booksource Inc., for new e-book models for school/library business development. * Zelnick Media Capital, for potential acquisition of CFM Religion Publishing Group. * SwoopThat LLC, for development and roll-out of best-of-breed ed technology platform. * Project Advising and Management for numerous author/agent/publisher joint ventures.
Directed U.S. market operations and provided collaboration with Australian-based ownership. Oversaw significant business unit revenue growth, program expansion, and customer evolution, for award-winning PreK-Gr5 English- and Spanish-language literacy education publisher.
Launched, then sold HubEdu as a best-of-breed technology provider of cloud-based services that improve the process of textbook adoption, distribution, pricing, and shopping.
Joined start-up, positioned as leading ed tech platform, with software and services to improve the operations, efficiencies, and revenue of college bookstores, while enhancing education affordability for students.
Led consolidation of seven publishing groups with $75 Million in revenue; group publishing program of 375 titles annually. Direct management responsibility for publishing team of eighty professionals. Increased market share (+20%) by integrating multiple marketing teams and dramatically boosting web presence, e-marketing, and social media. Oversaw publishing of #1 bestsellers and award-winning works: Caldecott Medal, National Book Award, Newberry Medal, et al.