Random House CEO Markus Dohle announced today that Crown Publishing Group will be broken into two distinct groups. Crown Publishing Group publisher Jenny Frost is leaving the company. Doubleday Canada’s executive publisher Maya Mavjee will take over as publisher of the restructured Crown Publishing Group.
In a memo Random House CEO Markus Dohle summarized the changes: “After an extensive review, we believe that both our overall publishing interests and those of our respective imprints, authors, and our colleagues, will now be best served by splitting off the current Crown Publishing Group into separately structured and distinct groups: one comprised of the Crown trade-publishing imprints; the other with the Random House Audio Group and the Random House Information Group.”
As the news broke, GalleyCat had a telephone interview with Random House, Inc. spokesperson Stuart Applebaum: “Mavjee is joining Crown to maximize their publishing potential,” he explained. He also stressed the digital potential of the restructuring: “One of the rationales for the reorganization is to give our Random House Information Group publishing lines an even greater opportunity to expand on their digital publishing options. Already the Fodor’s Travel site is one of the most popular in its area, and we expect to be able to grow these businesses digitally on what has been a very strong foundation.”
The restructuring memo follows after the jump.