HarperCollins Restructures Sales Department

By Jason Boog 

Today HarperCollins announced a major restructuring of its sales department, including a number departures and retirements. We’ve included the complete company memo about the restructuring below…

Customer service VP Dan Holod, customer service director Gail Kunda and distributor sales director Jeff Rogart will all be retiring this summer. Ken Berger, Mike Brennan, Mark Hillesheim, Kathy Smith and Jeanette Zwart will all depart on July 20th.

Here’s more about the shift from Josh Marwell, president of sales: “Effective July 2012 the pricing, promotional, market insight and sales analytics efforts of the company will combine to become part of the sales department. This change will enable us to maximize opportunities for our authors and their readers, our customers, and our publishing divisions. Frank Albanese will now join the sales department as SVP, Market Insight and Sales Operations. In this newly created role Frank will focus on helping the company make sense of consumer behavior both digital and print, providing insight into sales and market trends as well as take on the overall direction of day-to-day sales operations. Dan Lubart SVP, Sales Analytics and Pricing will continue his work analyzing how pricing affects sales, developing tactics to maximize revenue and author exposure and creating interfaces to help his colleagues access complex data quickly and easily.”

MEMORANDUM
June 19, 2012
TO: All Employees
FROM: Josh Marwell

Today we are announcing some significant changes in our sales organization to help our company competeand thrive in this rapidly evolving marketplace now and in the years to come. These changes include a deeper commitment to excel in the critical capabilities to analyze complex sales data efficiently, to price our books intelligently and to understand market dynamics correctly. We also recognize that the time has come to put in place a more streamlined and flatter sales management team as we assess the radically changing book industry landscape.

Effective July 2012 the pricing, promotional, market insight and sales analytics efforts of the company will combine to become part of the sales department. This change will enable us to maximize opportunities for our authors and their readers, our customers, and our publishing divisions. Frank Albanese will now join the sales department as SVP, Market Insight and Sales Operations. In this newly created role Frank will focus on helping the company make sense of consumer behavior both digital and print, providing insight into sales and market trends as well as take on the overall direction of day-to-day sales operations. Dan Lubart SVP, Sales Analytics and Pricing will continue his work analyzing how pricing affects sales, developing tactics to maximize revenue and author exposure and creating interfaces to help his colleagues access complex data quickly and easily. Both Dan and Frank will report to me. Frank will continue to be responsible for the Supply Chain group and report to Larry Nevins in this capacity.

Doug Jones will assume the role of SVP, Group Sales Director for General Books. In this expanded role, Doug will be responsible for the overall sales strategy (both print and digital) and be the main sales liaison with publishing and marketing for adult imprints. He will also direct, with Kristin Bowers and her team, the day-to-day print business with Amazon.com.

Brian Grogan SVP, Sales and Andrea Pappenheimer, SVP, Children’s Sales will continue in their roles directing the day-to-day print and digital sales effort with our customers for both the divisions. Brian will also become the main sales liaison with the publishing and marketing teams at Avon Books.
In newly created roles will be Mary Beth Thomas, VP, Deputy Director of Sales reporting to Brian and Kerry Moynagh, VP, Deputy Director Sales reporting to Andrea. Mary Beth and Kerry will help manage the sales force and the relationships with our customers.

– Our field force, telesales and adult national retail accounts will report into Mary Beth
-Reporting into Kerry Moynagh will be the children’s national retail accounts and the Children’s merch reps.

-The national wholesale sales reps (Adult and Children’s) for Baker and Taylor and Ingram will report administratively to Kathy Faber, Director of Children’s Sales, who will continue her role as children’s product leader with the field sales force, and Amazon.com.
– Kerry Rosen, Manager of Sales Administration, Client Services will now report to me.

June Geiger will now oversee the Customer Service Department as Director, working with our customers, clients and sales reps. We want to acknowledge Dan Holod, VP of Customer Service and Gail Kunda, Director of Customer Service, who will both be retiring July 13. They have been true partners to a generation of salespeople serving our customer base with great care, good humor, and skilled professionalism. Thank you Dan and Gail for everything.

After 18 years at HarperCollins, Jeff Rogart, VP, Director of Distributor Sales will retire at the end of August. Jeff’s unique combination of deep industry knowledge, direct style and kind charm has earned him the respect and love from colleagues both inside and outside the company. He will be truly missed.
I regret to announce as a result of these changes that Ken Berger, Mike Brennan, Mark Hillesheim, Kathy Smith and Jeanette Zwart, our respected and beloved colleagues will be leaving the company on July 20th. Please join me in thanking them for their hard work, true dedication and warm collegiality in the countless contributions they have made to our company. We wish them only the best in the future.