IPG - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Founder of Boldwood Books
Amanda is the founder of Boldwood Books, a new independent fiction publisher. She was formerly CEO of Head of Zeus.
Andrew Johnston began his book trade career working at Foyles Bookshop and after almost three years decided to travel to Australia where he started as a Sales Rep for the then Hutchinson Group, eventually managing the Sydney office for what was to become Random House Australia. After twelve years Andrew returned to London to work for the Penguin Group as Special Sales Manager across all hardback and paperback imprints, then moving to Shropshire in 1990 having been appointed as Sales and Marketing Director with Airlife Publishing in Shrewsbury. He left to establish his own business Quiller Publishing in 2001 by acquiring Quiller Press and then a further four publishing companies including Kenilworth Press, previously owned by IPG Patron David Blunt. Quiller Publishing was acquired by IPG member Amberley Publishing in 2021. Andrew was Chairman of the Independent Publishers Guild from 2009-2011 and was a member of the IPG Board for eight years and credits the IPG with being an invaluable and constant source of inspiration and support throughout his independent publishing career.
For the past 30 years Brian been writing about pottery, advertising, women's fashion magazines, book publishing, and smell - primarily, but not exclusively, in Japan. Brian's link with the IPG is purely altruistic: he made some money out of investment in, and later sale of, two academic publishing companies, and wanted to give something back to an industry that had indirectly paid for his daughter's private education in the UK. He has been around long enough to be appointed professor of this and that at well-known academic institutions in England, Denmark and Hong Kong, but probably his single greatest achievement has been the fact that he once hitch-hiked from Aachen to Athens two hours faster than the train.
Brian spent most of his publishing career at Longman (later Pearson), ending up as Publishing Director for Humanities (Higher Education). After that he started Willan Publishing, specialising in books on criminology and criminal justice. Willan Publishing won IPG awards for Academic Publisher of the Year and International Achievement before being sold to Taylor & Francis in 2010, its 300+ books becoming part of the Routledge imprint. Brian now researches and writes about South African history.
Bridget is chief executive of the IPG. She delivers the IPG's strategy and has overall responsibility for the organisation.
Cath is the founder of award-winning children's publisher b small publishing, publishing creative non-fiction, activity and language learning books. Cath is also a former member of the IPG board and has been a generous supporter of many new and established independent publishers over the years, including through the IPG's mentoring programme.
Job Titles:
- Membership Engagement Manager
Charlotte is the IPG's membership engagement manager, whose main responsibility is overseeing the IPG collective stands at London and Frankfurt Book Fair. She also works on the IPG Skills Hub and the IPG Podcast, as well as helping to organise other IPG events throughout the year. Charlotte graduated from Kingston University with an MA in Publishing and joined the IPG in 2017.
Charly is the IPG memberships manager. Prior to joining the IPG, Charly spent six years in editorial and digital roles at a successful independent publisher, and organised multiple publishing events in Oxford. At the IPG, Charly focuses on memberships, events and digital platforms.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Member of the IPG BOARD
- Vice Chair
After working for several other academic publishers, Edward set up James & James (Science Publishers) Ltd in 1989. The company gradually specialised in international environmental issues and grew its types of output to include directories, magazines, yearbooks, journals and databases as well as books. In 2003 they acquired Earthscan. They sold the magazines in 2006 and rebranded all the publishing as Earthscan, winning the IPG Publisher of the Year award in 2010. In 2011 Earthscan was acquired by Routledge. Since then Edward has worked in a non-executive capacity for a number of other small publishers, as well as acting as the IPG's Development Director.
Edward is the IPG's development director. He has worked in academic and professional publishing for over 35 years, mostly in the independent sector. A member of the IPG since 1994, he was Chairman and majority shareholder at Earthscan, winners of the Independent Publisher of the Year in 2010. Since the sale of Earthscan, he has acted as a non-executive director for several other IPG members, and as a mentor to other start-up publishers. He lives in Herefordshire.
Over the last ten years, Eela has worked closely with CEOs and Boards. At CLA, she is a member of the Senior Leadership Team and leads on the product and data strategy for the company. Experienced in influencing Boards, she has a solid understanding of financial oversight, is a champion of good governance, processes and risk management. She is currently a trustee of the Federation of British Artists.
After a career in STM ad journals publishing, latterly with Cambridge University Press, Geoff took a PhD at the Courtauld Institute, where he is now an associate lecturer in Renaissance Art, his specialist area of research is art and patronage in the Tuscan city of Lucca during the fifteenth century.
Imogen is the IPG's head of partnerships. Imogen manages key supplier relationships in regards to the IPG's two main Conferences and Awards. With 15 years publishing services experience her expertise lies in building business relationships and event management.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director of David
James is Managing Director of David and Charles, a niche publisher with a focus on arts and crafts. The David and Charles imprint dates back to 1961, but the current company was founded in 2019 after a management buyout. He is a previous Chair of the IPG.
Job Titles:
- Member of the IPG BOARD
- Associate Publisher and Commercial Director
Jenny is Associate Publisher and Commercial Director at Canongate.
A former IPG Chair, John began his career in the book trade with Heffers Bookshop, Cambridge in 1973. He joined the Open University in 1976 in order to help develop the embryonic Open University Press, initially in sales and marketing, and later in editorial. He was part of the management buyout team in 1988, became managing director in 1990, and oversaw Open UP becoming a leading social science publisher before selling the business to McGraw-Hill in 2002. Since then he has sat on a number of boards including those of independent publishers such as Acumen, Flame Tree, Manchester University Press, Policy Press and Salt; but his main preoccupations now are family, the arts, competitive running, and armchair sport.
Job Titles:
- Member of the IPG BOARD
- President
Jonathan founded Learning Matters in 1999 and joined the IPG in 2000; he successfully built Learning Matters into one of the leading publishers in teacher training and social work before selling to SAGE in 2011. Jonathan started work in the book industry at Foyles in 1980, and subsequently went on to work in sales and marketing positions in professional publishing before starting Blackstone Press with two colleagues in 1988, and then taking up the role of Managing Director at Letts Educational between 1993 and 1998. Since 2011 Jonathan has undertaken a variety of consultancy projects and has mentored numerous start-up businesses. He is the Publisher at College of Law Publishing, and is Chair of IPG member Red Door Publishing.
Nicola is Chief Executive Officer at Edinburgh University Press. Prior to this role she was Head of Editorial (Books) at EUP and Publisher for their acclaimed Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies List.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Director of Nosy Crow
Kate Wilson is the founder and managing director of Nosy Crow, a children's publisher that launched in 2010 and has won multiple awards including Independent Publisher of the Year at the IPG's Independent Publishing Awards.
Job Titles:
- Head of Visual Arts Publishing at Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Kathryn Earle is Head of Visual Arts Publishing at Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. She oversees the Fairchild Books imprint, and managed the acquisition and integration of both Fairchild Books and AVA Publishing for Bloomsbury. Prior to joining Bloomsbury, Kathryn was Managing Director and one of the shareholders of Berg Publishers. Having joined Berg in 1993, she led its management buy-out in 2002 and sold the business to Bloomsbury in 2008. Kathryn has particular experience with digital products, having conceived of and launched the award-winning Berg Fashion Library. She began her career at the Modern Language Association of America in New York. Kathryn is an IPG Patron, has served on the Board, including as Vice-Chair, and enthusiastically supports the creativity, dynamism and entrepreneurship that characterize the IPG's membership.
Martin is former managing director of Maths - No Problem!, an educational publisher supplying Maths books, online services and training for primary school teachers.
Martin Sheppard founded the distinguished independent publishing house of Hambledon, based in Primrose Hill Village, editing and publishing over three hundred books by leading historians. His illustrated history, Regent's Park and Primrose Hill, was published in 2010. As a patron of the IPG Martin believes "No individual publisher knows all the answers in publishing, which is a complicated and tricky business. If, however, there is an answer to a publishing question, someone in the IPG knows it. Not only that, the person who knows it is almost always willing to share his or her knowledge with other members. All the aspiring publisher has to do is to define the question and ask the right IPG member. The IPG is a wonderful organisation: friendly, efficient, quirky, tolerant and stimulating. Its member are a remarkable set of enterprising and intelligent people. Independent publishing can be a lonely business. Meeting others who have made a success of it is both enjoyable and inspiring."
Martin Woodhead entered publishing in 1966 as a sales rep for Macmillan. In 1969 he joined the fledgling Gower Press as sales manager and left in 1972 to start his own business in Cambridge, Woodhead-Faulkner (Publishers) Limited, with Ian Faulkner as his partner. The business expanded steadily and was acquired by Simon & Schuster in 1987. It was around this time that Martin joined the IPG and soon realised what had been missing in his publishing life for many years. In 1989 he started his second business in Cambridge, Woodhead Publishing Limited, which also expanded steadily until it was acquired by Elsevier in August 2013. Martin served as Chair of the IPG in 1994 to 1995 and subsequently re-joined the committee in 2007. He became an IPG patron in 2014. Martin is now Chairman of Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing Limited in Cambridge, a company formed in March 2015 to specialise in agricultural science and technology.
Nicholas is the former owner of Nicholas Brealey Publishing, which he founded in 1992. It grew an international business with London and Boston offices and two acquisitions in the US before being sold to Hachette UK in 2015. He has also worked at Macmillan Press, Allen & Unwin and Simon & Schuster London. A past Chairman of the Independent Publishers Guild, Nicholas now coaches authors and is a consultant for independent publishers.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer at Edinburgh University Press
Nicola is Chief Executive Officer at Edinburgh University Press. Prior to this role she was Head of Editorial (Books) at EUP and Publisher for their acclaimed Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies List.
Nigel Farrow became one of the first members of the IPG when he founded Gower Press in 1967. The imprint still thrives as part of the Ashgate Publishing business that Nigel sold to Taylor & Francis in 2015, by which time Ashgate was publishing more than 850 new titles a year across a wide range of the social sciences and humanities. Nigel's other publishing activities and ventures have included time in the 1970s as chairman of Xerox's education and information companies in the UK, Australia, Africa and the Caribbean, and from 1981 to 1999 he was founder and chairman of Information Publications International, a company that marketed and installed research databases in university and national libraries. He is now chairman of Lund Humphries, a publisher of books on the visual arts. His other interests include modern British art, a vineyard in South West France and the development of community schools in Zambia.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant to Bridget Shine
Nikki Grogan is executive assistant to Bridget Shine, the IPG's chief executive. Along with assisting Bridget in her day-to-day activities, Nikki is primarily responsible for the administration of the IPG's mentoring programme and all things speaker-related at our conferences. Nikki joined the IPG team in 2017, having previously spent the majority of her career in corporate law.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive of Rowman & Littlefield International
Oliver Gadsby is Chief Executive of Rowman & Littlefield International, a new academic publisher based in London. He started his publishing career as an editor in Germany in the 1980s; he was subsequently a sales and marketing director in Sweden (with Liber), and later CEO of Nelson Thornes in the UK. Oliver varied the mix for a few years by becoming Director of Strategy & Acquisitions for Informa plc; he then returned to publishing by becoming CEO of Continuum, which was awarded the title of IPG Independent Publisher of the Year in 2011. Oliver led the sale of Continuum to Bloomsbury in 2011. Oliver is non-executive chairman of business publishing company WTiN.
Jill Pearce worked as a commissioning editor for Chapman and Hall/Spon before moving to Gower Publishing to develop their list of technical books. In 1990 she set up Donhead Publishing with her husband, Chris Hall, specialising in books (but also subsequently developing a journal) for professionals and academics in the field of architectural conservation and heritage. The Donhead Publishing assets were acquired by Taylor and Francis in 2013. Jill is currently the book review editor for the Journal of Architectural Conservation.
Alongside fellow Patron Jill Pearce, Chris was a co-founder of Donhead Publishing, a specialist in architectural books for professionals and academics. Donhead was acquired by Taylor & Francis in 2013.
Phil is founder and co-owner of Meze Publishing, a specialist in cookbooks including regional collections. He also Blind Mice Media, which specialises in the free magazine market.
Philip Kogan started Kogan Page in 1967 after serving as publishing director of Cornmarket Press.The first titles were to do with industrial training and transport but the list quickly developed a much broader base in management and other subjects. A global business developed, with offices in the US and India. Philip was an early member and Chair of the IPG (and recently honorary Patron), and was also for some years Treasurer of the PA. Philip's daughter Helen has now run Kogan Page since 2006.
Richard Fisher is the academic and policy correspondent of the IPG. He has worked in university press publishing for thirty-five years, and is currently Deputy Chairman of Yale University Press and a non-executive director of Edinburgh University Press, as well as a Fellow and Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society. Richard was previously managing director of Academic Publishing at Cambridge University Press, and is a frequent lecturer on scholarly communications at universities around the world: he is also a regular adviser to UK public agencies.
Sonny was a former IPG Chair and a previous Honorary President of the Independent Publishers Guild. Sonny Leong is currently Chief Executive of Civil Service College and Executive Chairman of Academy for Parliamentary & Policy Studies, and Deputy Chair of Future First, a social enterprise company, whose vision is that every state secondary school and college should be supported by a thriving, engaged alumni community that helps each one to do more for its students. He has more than 30 years of publishing experience, having worked in various academic and professional publishing houses. He founded Cavendish Publishing and developed it to be the largest independent academic law publisher in the UK before it was acquired by Informa PLC. He is a former Chair of the International Division and Council member of the Publishers Association in the UK. In 2014 he was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
On leaving school, Terry worked initially for Barclays Bank. Most of his career, however, was spent with a quarrying, landfill and haulage company, mostly as finance director/company secretary. On retirement, he spent over three years in a part-time position with Berg Publishers, and became finance director of the IPG in 2012.
Job Titles:
- Honorary President
- Deceased
Honorary president of the IPG from 1993 to 2008, Tim Rix had roles at a number of publishers including Longman, Yale University Press, Blackwell, Frances Lincoln and Jessica Kingsley. He was Chair at Book Aid International and spent two years as president of the Publishers Association.
Tom Holman is the IPG's head of communications. He writes and edits much of our output, including blogs and social media, and helps at the IPG's conferences and collective book fair stands. Tom has worked in publishing for nearly 20 years, initially at the Bookseller and now as a freelance.