Marta Martínez, the CEO of Grupo Anaya / Hachette for Spain and Latin America since 2020, graduated in Business Administration from St. Louis University, Missouri, and holds a Master’s Degree from the Instituto de Empresa.

With over 30 years of professional experience, she has worked across various sectors, including media, internet, and telecommunications. For the past 15 years, her focus has been on education and publishing, both in European and Latin American markets, where she has led business and digital transformation initiatives in Macmillan Education and Grupo Anaya.

Additionally, Marta Martínez is a member of the Education Publishing Association Board in Spain and serves on the Hachette Livre International Executive Board.

Juergen Boos trained as a publisher at Herder Verlag (Freiburg) in the early 1980s and has degrees in both Marketing and Organisational Theory. He has held management positions at Droemer Knaur Verlag (Munich), Carl Hanser Verlag (Munich), as well as Springer Science and Business Media (today Springer Science) and John Wiley & Sons (Weinheim). He became President and CEO of the Frankfurter Buchmesse GmbH (Frankfurt Book Fair) in 2005 and is President of LITPROM (Society for the Promotion of African, Asian and Latin American Literature) and Managing Director of LitCam (Frankfurter Buchmesse Literacy Campaign).

On 20 November 2013, he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art. In January 2017, Juergen Boos received an honorary degree from the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. In February 2018, he was conferred the cultural distinction of “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres“(Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) at the French embassy in Berlin. Furthermore, he is holder of the Spanish Order Isabel la Católica, Encomienda de Numero since October 2022 and of the Ribbon of Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit since February 2023. He is also a member of the Scientific Committee of Sheikh Zayed Book Award and a member of Akademie Deutscher Buchpreis (German Book Prize Academy).

Searsha Sadek is the Founder and Chief Product Officer of Shimmr, a company that
‘brings books to life’ through automated advertising campaigns. An expert in using AI
for marketing and at the cutting edge of developments, Searsha gives tips on how
every publisher and author can use technology to get their titles ahead. At Shimmr,
she uses this capability to match books to new audiences to maximise
discoverability, while generate advertising faithful to each book's DNA – bringing its
human genius to wider attention. Searsha trained as a psychologist, spent many
years in leading advertising agencies, and was Chief Revenue Officer of an AI-brand
management company. Outside work, you can find her swimming, drinking
tea, kickboxing – and of course, reading.

Gvantsa Jobava (1986) is the Vice President of the International Publishers Association (IPA) and the past president of Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association (currently the GPBA board member). She holds the position of the Head of International Affairs and the head of translated Fiction/Nonfiction department at Intelekti Publishing, one of the leading publishing houses in Georgia. In addition, she is a member of Women Publishers’ International Network – PublisHer. In 2020 she joined PEN Georgia.

In 2021-2022 in the frames of UNESCO’s “Tbilisi World Book Capital 2021” project, Gvantsa has founded the first Tbilisi Children Books Festival; Children Books Literary Award NAKADULI; The first Caucasus and Black Sea Basin Countries’ Regional Publishing Conference, etc.

Since 2013, Gvantsa Jobava has been lobbying for the Georgian publishing industry, advocating Georgian publishers’ interests and rights, standing for copyright and freedom to Publish and Freedom of Expression in Georgia. She has managed a number of projects to promote Georgian publishing and literary industry at international level, including Georgia’s “Guest of Honour” publishing program at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair. In 2017 and 2018, she organized Georgian writers’ and publishers’ peaceful performances – ‘STOP RUSSIA’ against Russian occupation, at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

 

In 2016 she founded World Read Aloud Day in Georgia, as well as the special award “Book Supporter of the Year”.

In 2017 she organized Nobel Prize Winner, Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich’s visit to Georgia. In 2013-2022 she was the organizer of Tbilisi International Book Festival.

 

Gvantsa Jobava is a poet and the translator of works of John Steinbeck, Chinua Achebe, Saul Bellow, John Lennon and others. She has also translated Anna Politkovskaya’s book “Putin’s Russia” and “A Message from Ukraine” by Volodymyr Zelensky into Georgian. She is the author and editor of the publishing project “Banned Books Shelf” and the founder of Banned Books Week celebrations in Georgia.