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D&M Publishers Inc. Addresses the Future
March 15th, 2012
D&M Chairman and CEO Scott McIntyre announced significant corporate changes in response to rapidly changing domestic and international book markets. These changes will empower a new generation to lead the company in its next stage of growth as an important Canadian cultural institution.
Company co-founder Scott McIntyre will continue in his current role as Chairman, D&M Publishers Inc., and Director of both D&M and BookRiff Media, but will relinquish his role as CEO of D&M effective July 1, 2012. He will remain actively involved with the company on a day-to-day basis, mentoring the new executive team while maintaining his strong relationships with certain authors and pursuing significant corporate opportunities. He will continue to lead government relations for D&M, and will undertake a full strategic review of the company’s art book programs, with the intent of strengthening D&M’s dominant position in the genre and taking the program fully international.
Rob Sanders, who founded and built D&M’s Greystone imprint, will lead the development of new business initiatives. He will carry the title Senior VP, New Business Development, International and Publisher-at-Large. In this expanded capacity, he will be responsible for pursuing high-level corporate opportunities, as well as leading the company’s international activities, including US distribution. He will also continue to head up the New Society Publishers imprint as Publisher, while continuing to work with the David Suzuki Foundation and with some of his long-standing authors.
Jesse Finkelstein, who in 2009 joined the company from Raincoast Books, where she was Associate Publisher, will step up from her current position of Director, Operations and Publishing Services, into the role of Chief Operating Officer, assuming full responsibility for running the company on a day-to-day basis. She will also continue to oversee the company’s digital initiatives.
Trena White, who joined the company from McClelland & Stewart in 2010 and has been Associate Publisher of the Douglas & McIntyre imprint since mid-2011, will become Publisher, D&M, fully in charge of running both the Douglas & McIntyre and Greystone programs, which will continue to embrace a broad spectrum of trade publishing while focussing on each program’s historic core strengths.
Nancy Flight, currently Associate Publisher, Greystone Books, will become Associate Publisher for both Douglas & McIntyre and Greystone, continuing her editorial responsibilities with key authors and the program of the David Suzuki Foundation, while working closely with White to shape both programs going forward.
McIntyre commented: “Book publishing everywhere in the world is going through profound and revolutionary change. Such change requires a radically different approach to what we all do. I am absolutely confident we have the right people, and the right energy, to take on the challenge and embrace this very bold and decisive step into the future.” He also noted that “one of the trickiest challenges any company faces is getting succession right, and I am very proud of the path we are embarking upon.”
“I am hugely engaged by the opportunity to help chart a new course for D&M,” added Finkelstein. “My colleagues and I face a formidable task; fortunately, we have a brilliant publishing legacy to build upon, a talented and experienced team to work with, and some exciting plans afoot.”
ABOUT D&M PUBLISHERS: D&M is Canada’s largest independently-owned publishing house, with full offices in Vancouver and Toronto and on Gabriola Island. Co-founded by Jim Douglas and Scott McIntyre in 1971, D&M has since published over 2000 books, while establishing one of the strongest backlists in Canadian publishing, with more than 700 active titles. Today, the company’s programs include three distinct imprints – Douglas & McIntyre, Greystone Books, and New Society Publishers – and its digital start-up, BookRiff, now a separate entity. The company is also the Canadian distributor of the distinguished New York publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
D&M Publisher’s reputation for editorial, design, and production quality has been recognized internationally as well as nationally, with authors such as Thomas L. Friedman, Dambisa Moyo, and Ishmael Beah joining such Canadian icons as Douglas Coupland, Wayson Choy, Emily Carr, David Suzuki, Robert Bringhurst, Andrew Nikiforuk and Wade Davis. Recent best-sellers have included John Furlong’s Patriot Hearts; The Man Who Killed by Fraser Nixon, nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award; Charlotte Gill’s Eating Dirt, winner of the 2012 BC National Award for Canadian Non-fiction and nominee for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize; Carmen Aguirre’s Something Fierce, winner of the CBC’s Canada Reads 2012 competition, and Andrew Nikiforuk’s Empire of the Beetle, shortlisted for the 2012 Shaughnessy-Cohen Prize and the 75th Governor General’s Literary Award.