Macmillan Children's hires Pearson and Timms as publishing directors

Macmillan Children’s Books has appointed Egmont's Nicole Pearson and Little Tiger's Barry Timms to new publishing director roles in its expanding Preschool, Brands and Classics division.

Pearson pictured above joins the company on 2nd June as publishing director for brands and media. At Egmont, she has been senior publisher and led the creation of the original Minecraft programme, published the Winnie-the-Pooh sequel The Best Bear in All the World, and delivered the Roblox brand launch. Previously, she worked at Penguin, where she was publisher for Frederick Warne and Ladybird and was instrumental in the acquisition of Peppa Pig.

At MCB, she will be acquiring new properties, as well as developing the Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler brand, growing the Moomins publishing, and leading further development of The World of Dinosaur Roar.

She said: “I’m really delighted to be joining Stephanie, Belinda and the team at Macmillan Children’s Books. The MCB list is really exceptional and I have long admired its enviable portfolio of market leading literary brands. I am excited to be joining the team as they deliver on their ambitious plans for growth.”

On 8th June, Timms pictured right will take up the role as publishing director for MCB Preschool, which encompasses Campbell Books. He has been Little Tiger's editorial director of picture books since 2012, bringing both established and new talent to the list.

He was previously at Walker Books and Carlton Publishing, where he worked on augmented reality books, and spearheaded partnerships with the National Railway Museum and the Science Museum. He is tasked with “taking Campbell to the next level of growth” and commissioning a market-led preschool novelty list.

Timms said: “I have long admired the Macmillan children’s team for its enduring high values, ambition and creativity. Whilst I am sad to be saying goodbye to my Little Tiger colleagues, especially while we are all social distancing, I feel very excited about a future at Pan Macmillan - with all the new relationships, projects and possibilities it will bring.”

Stephanie Barton, who both new recruits will report to, said: “I am delighted to welcome Nicole and Barry to the team. They each have fantastically strong creative and commercially exciting credentials to bring to our talented team. I am delighted that we will be working together as we move into this next stage - and we are raring to go.”

Belinda Ioni Rasmussen, MCB publisher, said: “2019 was MCB’s seventh consecutive year of growth, our biggest year to date, and our ambition is to accelerate this growth further. We have achieved above market success in the two key market segments of Preschool and Early Learning, and Novelty and Activity. With these two new roles, we are in a very strong position to build on this. Publishing innovative, fun, high quality market-led books is what we always strive to do, reaching as broad and diverse an audience as possible, and we will now do so with renewed focus and resources.”