Group commercial director Julian Shaw to leave Bonnier Books UK

Bonnier Books UK group commercial director Julian Shaw has become the latest senior departure from the business, leaving to pursue new opportunities as of today (31st October), the end of the month.

Shaw, who previously occupied senior commercial finance and business development roles at Sky TV, Daily Telegraph, Hachette UK and Simon & Schuster, was hired in 2014 under former c.e.o. Richard Johnson when the company was working to grow its turnover to £100m.

According to Bonnier Books UK, during his time with the business Shaw worked on a wide variety of commercial, legal and strategic initiatives, including working closely with the management team at Bonnier Zaffre to transform the business from a small children’s fiction publisher into a highly-respected commercial fiction house.

Bonnier Books UK told The Bookseller Shaw's departure was not a redundancy and that he had felt it was the right time to move on from the company. The company is not currently looking for a replacement for his role and his reports will now report into Jonathan Perdoni, chief operating offficer for Bonnier Books UK.

C.e.o. Perminder Mann commented: "Julian has played a key role in the growth of the business since he joined four years ago and is a much respected and liked colleague. He will be missed. Among his many achievements at the company, he has expertly steered the commercial development of our fiction imprints based in Marylebone and established our standalone audio division. I wish him every success in his future career."

Shaw said: "It’s been a pleasure to work with so many talented people and help make Bonnier Books UK such a force in a relatively short period of time. I am extremely proud of our recent publishing successes and I have no doubt this success will continue."

The news follows a spate of changes within the firm since Johnson stepped down in February after financial accounts revealed it had "wrestled with profitability problems" resulting from rapid growth in 2017. Former c.o.o. Sharon Parker left in June after 20 years, followed the next month by Mark Smith, c.e.o. of imprint Bonnier Zaffre, and Ben Dunn, managing director of its Kings Road Publishing division, who both left in July. Mann took the reins of the rebranded Bonnier Books the same month while Kate Parkin, previously executive director of Adult Fiction at Bonnier Zaffre, was subsequently promoted to managing director of Adult Trade in September. Other promotions made last month saw Jane Harris step up as managing director of Children’s Trade and James Horobin as group sales, marketing and publicity director of Trade, Bonnier Books UK.