The new digital teams established by Random House last week are designed to put in place a leadership group to guide the publisher's digital efforts and to support digital initiatives within the publishing groups. In her memo announcing the appointments, Madeline McIntosh, president, sales, operations, and digital, noted that the realignment will “provide the resources required to ensure healthy digital growth while also continuing to invest in maintaining our leadership position in the print marketplace.”
The three top appointments—Amanda Close, Peter McCarthy, and Nina von Moltke—all come from within the company. Close's team will be responsible for establishing strategy, terms, policy, and programs for new business models and to identify new business opportunities. The group will also manage existing digital relationships with partners such as Amazon and Google. McCarthy, who has specialized for the past two years in reaching consumers online, will now work with Random's sales reps, publishers, and retailers to ensure the company is maximizing its ability to convert consumers' interest in books to incremental sales. Von Moltke will work with Random's publishing groups to accelerate their own digital initiatives and will have oversight for Random publishing lists where digital distribution and e-commerce are already the core business.
The second part of von Moltke's duties will put her in charge of Random House Audio as well as the Fodor's Travel Group. RH Audio head Amanda D'Acierno will report to her, as will Fodor's publisher, Tim Jarrell. D'Acierno will also oversee the Random large print operations as well as the Living Language brand.
The other Random units that had been homeless since the Crown Publishing Group was split in two in December have been made part of the Random House Children's Books division run by Chip Gibson. The Princeton Review, Sylvan Learning, and Prima Games imprints now fall under the children's group, with Random chairman Markus Dohle explaining that those units share a core consumer base with the units in the children's group. Tom Russell, head of TPR and Sylvan, and Debra Kempker, who leads Prima, will report to Gibson. Also joining the children's division is the Tricycle Books young readers program, which has been part of Ten Speed Press, acquired by Random last year. Tricycle will be a Berkeley-based imprint of Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers.
Amid all the reorganization, Matt Shatz, who as v-p of digital had been Random's most visible digital executive, is leaving to become head of strategic content relationships at Nokia.
The accompanying chart shows how the new digital team fits in with McIntosh's other direct reports. As befitting her title, all sales heads report to McIntosh, including the recently hired Cyrus Kheradi and Andrew Weber, senior v-p and head of operations.
