Mahal to leave TRA

Sandeep Mahal is to leave The Reading Agency after seven years to become director of The Space, a BBC/Arts Council England venture for the development of digital art.

Mahal is currently on secondment to The Space, and will take up her new role full-time in September after a brief summer return to TRA.

Sue Wilkinson, TRA director, said: "Sandeep led on working with The Reading Agency's Reading Partners publishers to broker the creation of exciting and innovative events for readers and to create the strong partnerships which underpin all the work that we do. She has made a huge contribution to The Reading Agency's work and her skills, passion and commitment will be greatly missed."

Joanna Prior, Penguin General m.d. and a founding member of Reading Partners, added: "I'm sure that I speak for all Reading Partners publishers when I say that working with Sandy over the last seven years has been a joy and a pleasure. Her passion for books and reading and her unfailing advocacy for their value and importance for everyone served as a humbling reminder to those of us who take their reading lives for granted. With Sandy's enthusiasm for her work also came a real intelligence: she made things happen, she delivered results, and she understood the complex needs of all those involved in the partnership work between publishers and libraries…. She will be a tough act to follow, but we know that she is heading off into a brilliant and interesting new chapter in her life and one that will make excellent use of her many talents."

Mahal said she would "dearly miss" the friends and partnerships she had developed at The Reading Agency, adding: "I have absolutely no doubt that Reading Partners will go from strength to strength as a force for inspiring people to read more, and I will look forward to watching the initiative flourish in the years to come…The remarkable opportunity to dream about what artists can make to move, inspire and challenge us in a digital space was too good to resist."