Hachette UK merges sales teams

Hachette UK is to create a new sales structure, merging the teams of Little, Brown and Orion, and Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, Hachette Children’s Books and Quercus.

The restructure means Dallas Manderson, sales director at Orion, will leave the company to “pursue other interests”, while Jane Harris, executive director sales and marketing at Quercus, will also leave. Hachette said a “small number of roles in sales are now at risk of redundancy”, as a result of the sales team mergers.

Staff at Hachette were told today about the changes, which came about because of “substantial changes to our markets” which mean the company has to adapt its approach "in order to reflect and better serve these markets”. When asked by The Bookseller, a Hachette spokesperson said the changes were nothing to do with the company's current dispute over terms with Amazon in the US.

A statement from the company said: “We are enormously proud of our sales teams, of their passion for the books they sell and of their knowledge and understanding of their customers.

“This reorganisation ensures that all those qualities are maintained and that each company, the imprints within it and therefore every book we publish, will continue to have individual focus but, by coming together in this way to better reflect our markets, we can be more effective.”

The Little, Brown and Orion team will be headed by Rob Manser, who is currently sales, marketing and publicity director of Little, Brown.

Reporting to him will be Jo Carpenter, sales director of Orion, and the Little, Brown sales director, the head of export sales, and the head of digital/online sales, who are all yet to be appointed.

Sales support, production, operations and special sales for both businesses will be combined under one c.o.o, Ben Groves-Raines, who is currently c.o.o. of Little, Brown.

Hachette said that “consideration is being given to the Orion special sales team, led by custom publishing director, Elizabeth Bond, to take on wider responsibilities”.

Little, Brown’s marketing and publicity teams will continue to report to Rob Manser, while the Orion marketing team will continue to report to Mark Rusher.

David Young, chief executive of Orion Publishing Group, said: “As a result of this restructure Dallas Manderson has announced that he will be leaving Orion to pursue other interests.

"There will be other opportunities to pay proper and fitting tribute to Dallas for his enormous contribution to Orion so for now I simply want to salute him as a brilliant sales director and a wonderful colleague.

“Everyone at Orion will miss him very much indeed.”

The Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, Hachette Children’s Books and Quercus team will be headed by Lucy Hale, currently consumer director of Hodder & Stoughton and John Murray Press.

Each division of the team will retain a sales director and sales staff. Headline sales director Barbara Ronan; John Murray Press UK sales director Ben Gutcher; Hodder & Stoughton UK sales director Catherine Worsley; Hachette Children’s Books UK sales director Jason McKenzie; and Hodder Faith key accounts manager Dave O’Shea, plus the Quercus sales director and the ANZ/Ireland international manager, who are yet to be appointed, will all report to Hale.

Clare Somerville, deputy m.d. of Hachette Children’s Books with responsibility for growth projects and for marketing, publicity and rights and school sales will continue to report to Marlene Johnson, m.d. of Hachette Children’s Books.

Jamie Hodder-Williams, c.e.o. of Hodder & Stoughton and Headline, said: “Jane Harris will leave Quercus in July. Jane is admired enormously throughout the trade and in the very short time that we have worked together – since Hodder & Stoughton acquired Quercus – my admiration for her professionalism and her understanding of publishing and bookselling has deepened.”

Hachette said Manser and Hale will “work together to determine the right structure for field sales”, with any changes to be announced later this year.

International sales will be brought together under one international sales director, who is yet to be appointed. The new international sales director will work closely with the divisional sales directors and their export sales specialists and report to Hachette UK commercial director Richard Kitson.

It is expected that a majority of the roles which are yet to be filled will go to internal candidates, said Hachette.

Hale will continue to report to Hodder Williams, while Manser will report to both Young and Ursula Mackenzie, c.e.o. of Little, Brown. Hachette’s federal structure will remain intact, said Hachette, and the restructure is all “about bringing scale to our sales functions”.