Clare Harington to leave Hachette

Hachette's group communications director Clare Harington is stepping down after 12 years with the company.

Harington, who first joined Hachette in the newly-created role back in 2007, will leave towards the end of this year “to do other things”. She will assist c.e.o. David Shelley in finding her successor before she goes.

She said: “I have had a fantastic 12 years at Hachette, working closely first with Tim and then with David and many wonderful colleagues. It’s been enormously rewarding, and I have it enjoyed it so much, but now is the time to do other things, not all of them focused around work.”

Harington arrived at Hachette from a similar role at Random House, having previously been publisher at Pan Macmillan and marketing director for Penguin.

Shelley praised Harington for the work she had done bringing together communications for Hachette’s various companies, helping the firm's 2015 move to Carmelite House and starting its annual showcase, an event she has devised and produced for the past three years.

He said: “When Clare joined Hachette, it was a very loose federation of companies, brought together by Hachette Livre and newly branded Hachette UK. The publishers in the group were in different buildings, with little internal communication, no way of working together and there was little, or no, Hachette identity.

“Over the 12 years she has been with the company, originally working closely with Tim Hely Hutchinson and latterly with me, Clare has been a facilitator of collaboration between companies and departments and a voice of calm and common sense in a crisis. She has handled the whole range of communications, which were necessary during Hachette’s development with great care, always ensuring that what and how we communicate reflects our company values.”

He added: “On a personal level, I would just like to say that it is special to work with someone who is not only a consummate professional but is also warm, kind, positive and who has a great sense of humour that lifts me whenever she is in the room.”