Don Weisberg is stepping down as president of Penguin Young Readers Group to become president of Macmillan Publishers U.S. He will be succeeded at Penguin by Jen Loja who has been senior v-p and associate publisher of the young readers group.
At Macmillan, Weisberg will oversee the different publishing divisions, the audio and podcast businesses, and the trade sales organization. He will start at the beginning of January and report to Macmillan CEO John Sargent.
In making the Weisberg announcement, Sargent explained that with the growth of Macmillan’s trade business and his own new responsiblities, “it is clear that the U.S. business needs a dedicated senior executive to lead our publishing efforts.”
In August, Sargent was named executive v-p of Holtzbrinck, overseeing the company’s higher education business while continuing to run global trade. Macmillan senior executives Andrew Weber, who is COO of Macmillan, and Ken Michaels, CEO of Macmillan Learning, will continue to report to Sargent.
Weisberg began his career in 1980 as a Bantam sales rep and held a number of high-ranking jobs before being named president of Penguin Young Readers Group in 2008. In his memo to PRH’s employees announcing the change in leadership at Penguin Young Readers, Markus Dohle said that choosing Loja to replace Weisberg was “as natural as it is obvious.”
Loja has been at Penguin Young Readers for seven years and was promoted to her most recent position this summer. In making the announcement, Dohle observed, “Her promotion is a logical evolution and expansion of her current responsibilities, and a recognition of the crucial role she has played side-by-side with Don as his deputy in the transformation of Penguin Young Readers into one of children’s publishing’s great powerhouses.”
In her new post, Loja will report to Dohle.
