Richard Sarnoff, the president of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and a key figure in the negotiation of the Google Book settlement, has been named Person of the Year by Publishers Weekly.
According to his company profile, Sarnoff has managed offices in US, Europe and Asia, serves on the board of numerous companies in the conglomerate’s portfolio, and served as Chairman of the American Association of Publishers.
Here’s more from the post: “the debate the [Google Books] agreement generated throughout the year helped to raise issues that will shape book publishing far into the future. Although there were a host of people from all sides of the issue that contributed to developing an agreement, [Sarnoff] is credited with being the key architect of the settlement … To read about Sarnoff’s views of the settlement, as well as to hear from other important players in the agreement from the publishing, author, academic and technology worlds, read Monday’s issue of PW.”