Liisa McCloy-Kelley

Liisa McCloy-Kelley is VP, Director eBook Development & Innovation, Random House. She
works to create innovative new ebook products and drive new reading functionality across the ebook marketplace. She co-leads a corporate team of developers, designers and producers who are responsible for all of the ebooks of Penguin Random House US divisions as well as many of their client publishers. She has worked at PRH for more than 26 years and has dedicated the last decade to advancing ebook development in support of authors and their expanding needs for how to best express their stories in digital format. She has worked on a variety of ebook standards with numerous organizations and serves on the Board of Directors of the IDPF.

Alexandra Borg

My motto: «If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.» Donald Draper

 

Dr Alexandra Borg is an Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature and a lecturer in Swedish. She completed her PhD in 2011, with a dissertation on the fin de siècle-literature of Stockholm (1898–1916). From 2012 to 2015 she was an embedded researcher at Bonnier Publishing Group.

Borg’s research concerns modern publishing business and the future of the book, particularly the connections between new forms of production and the aesthetic of bookishness. She teaches publishing studies, book history, literary theory and methods, and academic writing. Her recent monograph, Strindbergs lilla röda: Boken om boken och typerna (with Nina Ulmaja) was nominated for The August Prize in the category Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2019.

She’s also been the chair of the jury for the Lars Salvius’s Society, 2018–2020 and chair for assessment committee for evaluation of courses and undergraduate degree programme in Physics, Uppsala University.

Erik Wikberg

My life motto? “It’s got to go bang and it has to be fun, otherwise I won’t come”, as Astrid Lindgren’s character Karlsson says in The World’s Best Karlsson (1968).

 

Dr. Erik Wikberg is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stockholm School of Economics focused on art and literature. He is also an Assistant Professor in War Studies at The Swedish Defense University, and an Expert Member for non-fiction literature in the Swedish Arts Council. Moreover, he is a columnist, a self-employed consultant and a co-owner of a fin-tech startup (Finc AB). Since 2014, he has written 15 reports on book sales statistics for the Swedish Booksellers Association and the Swedish Publishers Association. All in all, he has more than 70 publications.

His current research is focused on plural institutional logics in the organizational field of Sweden’s literature industry. He has previously studied how different cultural organizations, mainly in the art world, handles contradictory demands. This summer, he publishes two books on Sternberg Press in Germany: Economic Ekphrasis: Goldin+Senneby and Art for Business Education (co-edited with professor Pierre Guillet de Monthoux) and Artful Objects: Graham Harman on Art and the Business of Speculative Realism (co-edited with Isak Nilson).

He was the first Director of Stockholm School of Economics Literary Agenda from 2018 to 2020, a joint collaboration between Stockholm School of Economics and McKinsey & Co. In the second year of the initiative, it had recruited more than 400 students, which was five times more than the aim. The initiative arranged book circles of contemporary fiction literature and had author talks with for example Ian McEwan, Jennifer Clement, Mircea Cărtărescu and Viet Thanh Nguyen at the university college.


Olivia Valentine

“For content creators to truly connect with consumers and leave a lasting impression, the impact of established human traits, habits and social constructs needs to be considered”

 

Olivia Valentine is a Senior Strategic Insights Analyst at GlobalWebIndex, a market research company running the world’s largest ongoing survey on the digital consumer. She analyses this rich dataset to uncover insights in media and beyond to deconstruct consumer needs and behaviors, helping brands and marketers to know and understand ever changing audiences.

Verónica Reyero

Culture as a shared set of believes, behaviours and values is constantly being remodelled.

Verónica Reyero is a business anthropologist based in Valencia, Spain. She graduated in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Granada and holds a Master’s degree on Rational Use of Medicines from the University of Valencia. As a researcher, Veronica has worked both in public and private organisations in national and international projects for various sectors including health, food, technology and Real Estate. Verónica is one of the founding partners of Antropología 2.0, a pioneering agency in applying an anthropological understading to business challenges. Reyero is also convener of the Applied Anthropology Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). 

 

Michael Tamblyn

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Under stress, we learn what is essential in reading – the words, the stories, knowledge, escape or immersion. Everything else is just means of delivery.

 

Michael Tamblyn, President and Chief Executive Officer at Rakuten Kobo, drives growth, profitability and international expansion in a fiercely competitive market. He combines a passion for reading with a deep focus on hardware and software experiences. In addition to leading Rakuten Kobo, the global digital bookseller, He advises startups focused on aging and technology as Chief Entrepreneur of Age-Well NCE, is on the board of directors of the Law Commission of Ontario, Ontario’s law reform body, as well as The Power Plant, Toronto’s foremost contemporary art gallery. Michael has been a part of Rakuten Kobo’s executive team since its inception in 2009, and previously held the role of Chief Content Officer. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario.

Cristina Mussinelli

General Secretary of Fodazione Lia, Board Member at EDRLab and Member of the Board of Directors at IDPF.

Mussinelli has a good knowledge of the Italian and international publishing market, since has managed many projects both in traditional and digital publishing formats.

Cristina has specific know-how in digital publishing, using the emerging technologies for both production workflow and distribution channels.

Since 1990 has been involved in the following activities on behalf of major Italian publishing houses and media companies

  • Market analysis and benchmarking with Italian and International competitors to develop new business ideas
  • Feasibility studies on effective management of editorial content in media independent format in order to reuse them on many different support and delivery platforms (paper, off line, on line, print on demand, mobile)
  • Integrated management of editorial projects from the initial idea and market analysis to the final deployment on the market, including the management of all the legal aspects
  • Consultancy aimed to define effective technical solutions in order to manage each single project

Magnus Nytel

 

Nytell has been working in the publishing sector from 1997. He was Managing Director of Book of the Month. Later he developed his career during eighteen years in different posts at Bonnierförlagen until he joined Nextory.

Ainhoa Sánchez Mateo

 

Ainhoa Sánchez Mateo (Madrid, 1974) lleva veinte años dedicada a la gestión cultural, primero en el mundo de las exposiciones de arte y, desde 2014, en temas literarios.

Licenciada Cumlaudeen Historia del Arte por la Boston University, y máster en Gestión Cultural, por la Universidad Oberta de Catalunya, Universitat Girona y Universitat Illes Balleares, es responsable del Área de Literatura y libro de Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), entidad dedicada a impulsar y promocionar la cultura y el patrimonio de España, a través de un amplio programa de actividades que incluye exposiciones, cine, teatro, música, producciones audiovisuales e iniciativas que fomentan la movilidad de profesionales y creadores.

 

Entre otras funciones, Ainhoa gestiona las ayudas del Área de literatura y libro del Programa para la Internacionalización de la Cultura Española (PICE) de AC/E, que comprende dos líneas de ayuda: una destinada a apoyar la movilidad de los profesionales culturales españoles en el extranjero, y otra a favorecer las visitas a España de programadores y prescriptores internacionales. Desde 2013 este programa ha promovido que alrededor de 500 profesionales españoles pudieran estar presentes en distintas citas internacionales, y que más de 300 programadores extranjeros hayan visitado ferias, festivales y encuentros literarios en España para conocer de primera mano nuestro sector del libro.

 

Fotográfía: @Lisbeth Salas

Oren Teicher

 

«Bookstores are a place where different thoughts, different ideologies and different perspectives all sit lined up on a shelf next to one another. Bookstores are the perfect place for the conversation to begin about how we can understand different people’s perspectives and how we can reconcile different points of view».
Oren Teicher is CEO of the American Booksellers Association. He has been with the ABA for nearly 30 years and was CEO for the past decade, when core membership rose from 1,401 in 2009 to 1,757 in 2018. Teicher came to ABA in 1990 as the association’s Associate Executive Director. During his almost 30 years at ABA, he served as Director of Government Affairs, the founding President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and, through 2009, as ABA’s Chief Operating Officer. Teicher succeeded ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz in June 2009. Founded in 1900, the American Booksellers Association is a national not-for-profit trade organization that works to help independently owned bookstores grow and succeed. ABA’s core members are key participants in their communities’ local economy and culture, and to assist them ABA provides education, information dissemination, business products, and services; creates relevant programs; and engages in public policy, industry, and local first advocacy.