By dividing the Crown Publishing Group into two units, Random House CEO Markus Dohle is putting more structure into an operation that, as Dohle noted, had grown in a myriad of ways, often adding companies that had little in common. Most of Random's recent acquisitions—including Watson-Guptill, Ten Speed Press, Monacelli Press, and Multnomah—ended up in the Crown camp and had been integrated by Crown head Jenny Frost, whose rise through the publishing ranks had been tied early in her career to the audio business and who has left Random as a result of the reorganization.
By putting different managers over the trade imprints and the audio and information groups, Dohle seems to want the companies to have a sharper focus on their particular businesses. The mandate given to incoming Crown publisher Maya Mavjee is to help “lead its imprints to realize their greatest fiction and nonfiction publishing potential,” Dohle wrote in the memo announcing the Crown reorganization. The final structure of the audio and information groups has not yet been determined, but the businesses in those groups are all deeply involved with digital publishing, and it would not be a surprise if the new management of those companies pushed those groups even more aggressively down the digital road. Indeed, Dohle noted that separating the audio and information units from the traditional print business “will allow us to focus on the unique opportunities these formats provide.”
