Harris leaves Bonnier Books UK for Welbeck

Jane Harris is leaving her role as m.d. of Children's Trade at Bonnier Books UK to take up the post of group publisher for Children's Books at Welbeck.

At Welbeck, Harris will succeed Alexandra Allan who has relocated to her native Australia.

The move will reunite Harris with former boss Mark Smith, now executive director at Welbeck, whom she previously worked with at both Bonnier and Quercus. Last year Bonnier group sales and marketing director James Horobin also left the company to join former boss Smith at Welbeck.

Welbeck executive director Marcus Leaver said: “Mark and I are excited to add Jane’s considerable experience to our accomplished senior management team. When we heard of Alex’s plans to relocate we knew that Jane was the person who could take Welbeck Children’s Books to the next level and implement our vision for this part of the business.”

Harris said: “This is such an exciting opportunity to join Welbeck, working with Mark as well as other former colleagues. The Welbeck Children’s team is young but talented and I cannot wait to work with them to enhance our author and illustrator publishing programmes for the future.”

Bonnier Books UK c.e.o. Perminder Mann said: “Jane has been a brilliant friend and colleague over the past several years and I wish to take this opportunity to thank her for her work and contribution during her tenure at Bonnier Books UK. Her expertise and infectious energy has been a real asset to everyone on the team and her insightful leadership has built our children’s publishing list into a strong and cohesive business. She will be enormously missed but we’re excited for her as she takes this fantastic new role and the next step in her exceptional career."

Harris has worked in publishing for over 25 years, with experience working across both adult and children’s publishing programmes, including at Unwin Hyman, HarperCollins, Walker Books and Quercus. She joined Bonnier as executive director for children's fiction in 2015 and was promoted to m.d. of Children's Trade in 2018.