Coen to head Susanna Lea’s London office

Hardman & Swainson rights director and agent Thérèse Coen has been appointed director of the Susanna Lea Associates London office, succeeding Kerry Glencorse who is leaving the books industry. 

Coen, who begins her role on 31st October, set up the translation rights department at Hardman & Swainson six years ago after previously being a rights agent at Madeleine Milburn. She has also built a list of her own clients across children’s and adult fiction, which includes bestselling authors such as Alex Bell, M A Kuzniar and Amita Parikh. The Belgium native started her career in the Bloomsbury rights department before moving to Ed Victor. In 2017, she was named in The Bookseller Rising Stars list.

Coen said: “After almost six wonderful and rewarding years at H&S, I am hugely looking forward to joining Susanna Lea and her incredibly successful and talented colleagues around the world. SLA is such an inspiring international powerhouse, and I am very excited to be taking the London office into its next chapter.”

Glencorse has been at SLA for 17 years, having run the London office since 2008. She is leaving the book trade to work in fundraising for underrepresented entrepreneurs. She said: “"I have worked at SLA for most of my professional life, and I am immensely grateful for all I have learned there and the friends I have made. I’m sad to be leaving my amazing authors, but I know they are in excellent hands as I embark on my own new chapter."

British-born Susanna Lea set up SLA in Paris in 2000, shortly after leaving her international projects role at  Éditions Fixot/Robert Laffont. The agency’s New York office was opened in 2004, with the London outpost following in 2007.