Philippa Cotton becomes publicity director at HQ as Komal Patel is promoted to deputy publicity director

Philippa Cotton has been appointed publicity director at HQ, reporting to associate publisher Joanna Rose. She will lead the publicity team working across the division’s imprints, comprising HQ, HQ Digital, Mills & Boon, Pavilion and Akan Books.

Cotton moves to the new role from HarperFiction and began her career at Cornerstone in 2010. She went to Bloomsbury in 2015, managing campaigns for Isabel Allende, Samantha Shannon, Benjamin Myers, Paul Hollywood and Cariad Lloyd.

Within the HQ division’s publicity department, Komal Patel is promoted from head of PR to deputy publicity director. Komal joined HQ with the HarperCollins acquisition of Pavilion Books in December 2021. With more than 20 years’ experience in the publishing industry, her recent campaigns include Fearless by Trinny Woodall, You Will Get Through This Night by Dan Howell, For the Love of Food by Paul Ainsworth and Motherkind by Zoe Blaskey.

The current publicity director at HQ, Mills & Boon and Pavilion, Emily Burns, will be returning to freelance from early 2025.

Rose said: “Philippa is a brilliant and dedicated publicist, with a deep understanding of audience and impact, whose creativity and drive creates unmissable PR. Together with Komal, whose tenacity and dedication to her campaigns and her authors is outstanding, I am excited to see the publicity team continue to grow and thrive under their leadership, bringing even more readers to even more books.”

Cotton added: “I am thrilled to be joining HQ to lead such a brilliant, ambitious publicity team. I have had the pleasure of working with extraordinary authors and colleagues throughout my career and I am delighted to be taking the next step with HQ. I have always admired their mission statement to publish books that are bold, brave and inclusive and it is a privilege to bring my knowledge and experience to work with such a stellar list of authors.”

Patel said: “It’s an exciting time for the team. I am looking forward to working closely with Philippa, and to continue creating impactful campaigns that reach readers and start conversations.”