New roles for Young and Elton at HarperCollins

HarperCollins has promoted Kimberley Young (pictured) to the role of executive publisher for HarperFiction, with responsibility also for digital-first division One More Chapter.

Oliver Malcolm remains executive publisher for HarperNonFiction, Avon and HarperNorth.

Both Young and Malcolm continue to report to Kate Elton, who who now becomes managing director of the divisions.

The HarperFiction editorial team will now report to Young via the senior publishers heading up each individual area and imprint: Julia Wisdom, David Brawn, Lynne Drew, Suzie Doore and Natasha Bardon.

Young, who joined HarperCollins in 2012 to head up the then commercial women’s fiction list, has helped build the careers of established authors including Josephine Cox, Fern Britton and Barbara Erskine and new authors such as Kimberley Chambers, Lucy Foley and Gail Honeyman, as well as acquiring authors including Dilly Court and Susan Lewis and increasing their readership and sales. In 2019 she also launched the standalone digital division One More Chapter.

Young joined the HarperCollins executive committee in 2017.

Elton said of Young: "She has proven herself not only a visionary, creative and innovative publisher, but also a fantastic leader whose energy, strategic thinking and sheer passion for her books and her authors is genuinely inspiring. She combines intelligent, market-aware and forward-looking strategic thinking with that most important of qualities in a publisher: great gut instinct. With Kim and Oli in place we are perfectly placed to take these key divisions forward to even greater success."

HarperCollins c.e.o. Charlie Redmayne added: "In her role as publisher of General Fiction Kim has shaped an incredibly strong and dynamic list. I am delighted she will be taking on the role of executive publisher alongside Oli Malcolm and know that with Kate as m.d. we have a world class team in place to build on the huge success of recent years."

Young commented: "I am delighted to take on this new role—this is the most exciting place to be in publishing today and I can’t wait to work with our incredible team and world class authors to create tomorrow’s bestsellers."

Also promoted in the general fiction team are Kate Bradley, who is now editorial director, and Charlotte Brabbin, who becomes senior commissioning editor.