Avon promotes Rachel Hart to senior commissioning editor

Rachel Hart has been promoted to senior commissioning editor at Avon with immediate effect, 18 months after joining the company.

Previously commissioning editor, she will continue acquiring commercial fiction across all genres, including women’s and book club fiction, crime, thrillers and uplit. 

Publisher Helen Huthwaite said: “I am absolutely delighted to see Rachel take this well-earned step up to senior commissioning editor – a role I know she will grasp with the gusto she has shown in all her publishing to date. Since joining Avon, Rachel has proved herself to be a talented and commercially astute editor with superb taste. She is the ultimate champion for her authors and this, coupled with the skill she has shown in all her publishing over the past year, makes this a thoroughly well-deserved promotion that I couldn’t be happier to see.” 

Hart said: “I’m thrilled to be taking the next steps in my career at Avon and to continue championing my fantastic authors who I love working with. Avon are second to none when it comes to commercial publishing and I’m delighted to keep working alongside Helen and the rest of the team to bring our brilliant books to as many readers as possible.” 

Hart joined Avon in October 2022. She recently published Sunday Times bestseller Four Weddings and a Christmas by Phillipa Ashley, as well as books by Harper Ford, Molly Green, Bella Osborne and Anne Wyn Clark, among others. Previously she worked at Welbeck and Head of Zeus on authors such as Andy McNab, Freya North and Wendy Holden.