Diane Spivey to retire from Hachette

Hachette UK's group contracts director Diane Spivey will retire in early May after 16 years at the company.

Spivey's publishing career began at Hutchinson 43 years ago and she joined Little, Brown as Rights and Contracts Director in 2004. In that role, she significantly expanded and developed the company’s rights selling operation and latterly brought her experience to the wider Hachette group as part of the team implementing a new bibliographic system company wide.

Five years ago, she was asked to create and head a new Hachette Group Contracts Department and has succeeded in bringing together seven different divisions, improved turn-around times for contracts and enhanced efficiency of the systems, while preserving the individuality of the publishers, said Hachette.

Spivey has also represented Little, Brown and Hachette on various PA committees and working parties and taken a keen interest in all areas of copyright, licensing and rights selling, on which she lectures regularly.

She said: "I feel privileged to have worked for Hachette UK and Little, Brown and I have enjoyed my time here tremendously. I will miss my wonderful colleagues and the marvellous books, but the time has come for me to step back and look at my future life afresh. I plan to continue teaching and lecturing and working in other ways in the book trade."

Richard Kitson, deputy group chief executive, said: "I have been lucky to have worked closely with Diane firstly at Little, Brown and then over the last five years, in her expanded role as Group Contracts Director for Hachette UK. She is a consummate professional, one of the most deeply knowledgeable colleagues we have in a number of areas and extremely well regarded and liked at Hachette and across the industry. I know that Diane has plans to stay involved in publishing, which is great news but we will miss her enormously day to day and wish her a very successful and lengthy retirement."

C.e.o. David Shelley added: "I have worked with Diane for 15 years and have huge admiration for her deep knowledge of everything contractual. She’s one of the foremost experts in the industry and has done so much good work for us. I wish her all the best for a long and happy retirement."

Plans for Spivey’s successor will be announced shortly.