MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
November 15-30, 2004 Edition
HarperCollins Names
Morrison to Head New
HarperMorrow Division
NEW YORK, NY/11/09/04—HarperCollins Publishers has announced that Michael Morrison has been named President and Group Publisher of the newly created HarperMorrow division of the General Books Group, overseeing the HarperCollins, William Morrow, HarperEntertainment, Morrow Cookbooks, HarperPerennial, Avon, Eos, Dark Alley, Amistad, HarperAudio, HarperLarge Print and PerfectBound imprints. He will report to Brian Murray, Group President of HarperCollins Publishers.
“As publisher of Morrow/Avon, Michael has showcased his strong management and leadership skills, building the division into a highly profitable publishing company with bestselling, award-winning authors. During his tenure, Michael has transformed this business from breakeven to industry-leading profit margins. He has built a first rate publishing team as well as an impressive list of highly acclaimed literary and commercial authors such as Dennis Lehane, Bruce Feiler, Neil Gaiman, J.A. Jance and Elmore Leonard,” said Murray. “No one is better suited to lead the HarperMorrow division forward, and I’m tremendously excited to work with Michael in this new role.”
“As we move forward with our Publishing+ initiatives, it has become clear that both the Harper and Morrow divisions, and their imprints, can be developed into stronger brands. Michael is the ideal person to oversee both businesses and to differentiate and refocus our imprints with a consumer viewpoint, while continuing in his role as part of my global executive team.” said Jane Friedman, President and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide.
In this new structure, Susan Weinberg, Publisher of HarperCollins; Dawn Davis, Editorial Director of Amistad; and Ana Maria Allessi, Associate Publisher of HarperAudio will now report to Morrison, in addition to his current Morrow/Avon team.
Morrison joined HarperCollins in January 1999 as Vice President, Associate Publisher of HarperCollins. With the acquisition of William Morrow & Company and Avon Books, he became Executive Vice President and Publisher of the Morrow/Avon division in 2000. Prior to joining HarperCollins, Morrison held a variety of positions in production, marketing and sales for Bantam, Doubleday Dell; PocketBooks; Random House and Knopf. He started his publishing career working in Finance at Simon & Schuster in 1982.
HarperCollins is one of the leading English-language publishers in the world and is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NCP, NCPDP). Headquartered in New York, the company has publishing groups in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australasia. Its publishing groups include the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children’s Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand and HarperCollins India. You can visit HarperCollins Publishers on the Internet at http://www.harpercollins.com.
