Missingham to leave HarperCollins

Sam Missingham, digital project manager at HarperCollins, is leaving the company in May after the role was made redundant.

Missingham joined the publisher in 2013 as head of events, from her position as head of events and marketing at The Bookseller magazine. She then became head of audience engagement and most recently joined the digital team as project manager, helping to launch HarperCollins’ events platform BookGig.

HarperCollins said it was “sorry” to announce Missingham’s redundancy and Jo Surman, digital business director, said she was “very sad to see Sam go”.

“She is a steadfast champion of the customer, of books and of digital – as evidenced in her pioneering of online book festivals,” Surman said. “I’d like to thank her for her contribution to HarperCollins and her tireless support and enthusiasm for the BookGig project, which would not have been the success it is without the engagement of her community of online book-lovers. I wish her only the best in her next adventure.”

Missingham next plans to launch a website for "book-lovers" "imminently", in "the next week or so". She has a strong following of over 23.7k on Twitter, and plans to use her new presence and website to talk about the books she loves, the titles that book bloggers are "raving" about and "great books that I think maybe aren't getting the exposure they should".

"I am passionate about putting more books into more hands. A simple aim that I hope my website can deliver on," she told The Bookseller.

Missingham is also set to keynote at three industry events this summer in Berlin, Salzburg and Bilbao and will take on consultancy work in audience, digital, marketing and social strategies.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed working at HarperCollins,” Missingham said. “I have launched and worked on an extraordinary variety of projects during those three years. In particular it has been a privilege to work with our wonderful authors, editors, marketers, publicists and many other people across the business. I am very excited about new challenges in this wonderful industry that I love.”

Missingham’s last day in the office will be 12th May. She can be contacted on s.missingham@outlook.com.