Bloomsbury promotes Knight and recruits Wilks to sales teams

Bloomsbury Publishing has promoted Sarah Knight to UK adult sales director and recruited Sally Wilks from HarperCollins Children's Books to be its UK children’s sales director.

Knight (pictured) steps up to UK adult sales director, in which role she has responsibility for the adult and online sales teams. She has 16 years of experience in a variety of sales roles at Bloomsbury and is recognised for her "exceptional market knowledge and long-term strategic thinking". In particular Bloomsbury said it looked forward to the continued growth of its adult consumer and cookery lists under Knight's steerage.

Knight said: "It’s been a privilege to be part of the exceptional Bloomsbury story so far, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be leading the sales team in the next stage of UK growth. Bloomsbury is known for its confident, pedigree list, and I am delighted to be working closely with my colleagues to bring our stellar print and digital publishing line-up to market."

Wilks will begin in her new role as UK children’s sales director, gaining responsibility for the children’s and education sales team, at the end of June, reporting to Brigid Nelson, UK sales director for Bloomsbury Publishing Consumer Division. She comes to Bloomsbury from HarperCollins Children’s Books, where she has been head of children’s sales for the last three years following key account and sales manager roles at Simon & Schuster and Michael O’Mara.

Bloomsbury noted the "key role" she had played at HarperCollins in the growth of authors, characters and brands such as David Walliams and David Baddiel, Judith Kerr and Anna James, and welcomed Wilks' "positive and ambitious approach to everything she works with [making] her the ideal candidate for this newly created role".

Wilks said: "I've long admired the publishing at Bloomsbury Children's and watched them launch some of the most successful new children’s authors and illustrators of recent years, including Katherine Rundell, Catherine Doyle and Tom Percival. The wealth of talent on the list alongside the phenomenally successful Harry Potter brand makes this an especially exciting opportunity, and I am very much looking forward to working closely with all the teams at Bloomsbury."

Nelson said: "I couldn’t be happier with this new leadership structure, and I very much look forward to supporting Sarah and Sally in developing new strategies and sharing knowledge as we work closely together to exceed our business goals and achieve best in class sales reach for Bloomsbury’s award-winning and bestselling authors and illustrators."