Vicky Photiou joins Michael Joseph as marketing director

Penguin Random House Children’s head of marketing Vicky Photiou has joined Michael Joseph as marketing director, replacing Louise Jones who moves to Ebury.

Photiou has been covering for maternity leave since January but officially took on the role on Monday (30th September). She will report to communications director and associate publisher Elizabeth Smith.

Photiou joined Penguin Random House Children’s in 2008 “honing her creativity and brand skills on authors such as Roald Dahl and The Snowman,” the publisher said. “She also created an award-winning campaign for the bestseller, The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep, and played a significant part in the Ladybird relaunch strategy that went live this year.”

Smith said: “In her short time already at Michael Joseph, Vicky has proven to be a consistently smart and strategic thinker, but with creativity at the heart of everything she does. She has already played a key role in helping steer our e-book strategy resulting in the huge success of My Lovely Wife, brought a tireless passion to the publication of the critically acclaimed Ask Again, Yes by Mary-Beth Keane, as well as helping build the most 80s-tastic campaign for Wham, George and Me, coming this autumn. I’m very excited that Vicky is staying as a permanent member of Michael Joseph.”

Photiou added: “I’m delighted to be joining the MJ team on a permanent basis - they’re a vibrant and passionate publishing house with a track record of spotting and publishing industry-leading bestsellers. It’s been a pleasure to work with them over the last few months and I can’t wait to get started on 2020 and beyond.”

Jones will return to Ebury as creative and communications director to oversee the marketing and publicity across the publisher’s new hub structure, it was recently revealed. Jones will start her new role from Tuesday (1st October) where she will oversee publicity and marketing teams across four new publishing hubs: Smart, Entertainment, Self and Lifestyle/BBC. She previously worked for Ebury from 2010 to 2015.