DK appoints Caroline Brown as group marketing and communications director

DK has appointed Caroline Brown group marketing and communications director. She will start in the new role in January 2025 and will report directly to DK’s chief executive officer Paul Kelly.

Brown will lead DK’s marketing, communications and publicity teams, working across DK Living, DK Children’s, DK Licensing and DK Learning, as well as the Sourcebooks list.

The newly appointed group marketing and communications director will join DK from Octopus where she is currently group publicity and marketing director. Prior to Octopus, she was at Hardie Grant and Colman Getty, where her clients included Donna Hay, Val McDermid and The Desmond Elliott Prize.

During her 11 years at Octopus, Brown has built a combined publicity and marketing team and created campaigns for authors such as Diana Henry, Sabrina Ghayour, Alexandra Shulman, Dr Alex George and Sam Heughan among others. She has worked with brands like The White Company, Leon and Claridge’s, and launched the Cookbook Confidential community with a festival at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Brown was also instrumental in the launch of new imprints like Aster, as well as Octopus’s move into narrative non-fiction and fiction publishing.

At DK, she will shape a vision for marketing and communications which will drive growth and consistently deliver creative and communication strategies. In addition, she will be responsible for helping deliver on DK’s "global" commitment to its authors, illustrators and brand partners by developing strategies that fully leverage the talent across its international teams.

Kelly said: “Following an extensive and highly competitive process, Caroline really was the standout candidate thanks to her creative, innovative and highly commercial approach. She joins us at an incredibly exciting time as we look to expand the scope and ambition of our publishing. Her track record speaks for itself, and I know she will play a key role as we take our business to new heights.”

Brown added: “I have had the privilege of working with a team of incredible colleagues and authors and I will miss them all hugely. I have long admired DK and like so many of us have been a passionate reader of theirs since childhood. It is an amazing opportunity to join DK at this exciting moment and I can’t wait to start working with Paul Kelly and his team.”

As a member of DK’s senior leadership team, she will also sit on the publisher’s UK Board and its Global Executive Committee.