It may seem surprising that Marcus Leaver, president of Sterling Publishing, one of the world's leading nonfiction publishers, used to own three restaurants in London. Leaver himself notes the incongruity: “I was brought in [to Sterling] as the strategy and finance guy, which always kind of amuses me,” he says. “Because that's not historically been my background.”
But dig a little deeper and Leaver's trajectory starts to make sense. Sitting in his Manhattan office, he picks up Live What You Love by Bob and Melinda Blanchard, a Sterling book about following dreams and pursuing passions. “[This book] really struck a chord with me, because that's how I live my life. I do live what I love,” Leaver says. “Everything that I've done—whether it be strategy or finance or cooking or whatever—I love the businesses I've been in because of the people. It's the people, the people, the people. That's what gets me out of bed every morning.”
Leaver left the restaurant business—“I had made money, but I couldn't see myself doing it for the rest of my life”—and got his M.B.A. at the London Business School. Upon graduation, he took a job as corporate development director at the U.K. music and media company Chrysalis Group. By age 33, he had taken over as executive v-p and COO of the Chrysalis Books Group, which, like Sterling, publishes books in the categories of lifestyle; crafts and hobbies; mind, body and spirit; popular history; sports; and children's. He did that for two years, during which he became friendly with the top executives at Barnes & Noble, which was his biggest customer. When the former CEO of Sterling Publishing (which is owned by B&N), Charlie Nurnberg, asked Leaver to move to America to be the executive vice-president and CEO of Sterling, Leaver jumped at the chance, bringing his wife and young twins to live in New York. Three years later, in January 2008, Leaver took over as president of Sterling.
Ask Leaver to describe his new role, and he points right back to the importance of Sterling's people: “It's the editors, the production team, the sales and marketing teams, the back office, the inventory control. The answers lie with them.” Leaver sees his main role as providing focus and energy for his employees, and creating “an environment where people have a sense of belonging.” But Leaver knows as well as anyone that you can't please everyone, and the very people who he says draw him into work every morning are the same ones who keep his job challenging. He deals with conflicts among employees, authors and agents daily.
By many measures, Leaver is in a unique position. First, he runs a publishing company that is owned by the country's largest bookseller. Indeed, B&N is Sterling's largest customer, but the house also sells to a variety of retailers and distributors. Second, Leaver has international experience that many of his colleagues lack. Having run a British publishing company has given him the perspective to think beyond the North American market. “As a U.K. publisher, you know that you cannot make money on a book just in your home market,” he says.
Leaver is fond of telling his colleagues, “If everything's important, then nothing is.” It's a business tenet based on the principle that the best way to run an organization is to nurture positive, engaged employees, focus on their strengths and set clear expectations. Leaver reminds his employees of this daily, although, he says with a chuckle, “They're kind of rather bored of me saying it, quite frankly.”
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