Publishing Veteran to Head New Harcourt Group
by Karen Holt -- Publishers Weekly, 9/8/2003
Julie McGee, who has held senior executive positions at educational publishers McDougal Littell, McGraw-Hill Education and Scholastic, is joining Harcourt today as CEO of a newly formed division.
The division, Harcourt Supplemental, Professional and Trade, will include Harcourt Supplemental Publishing, Harcourt Trade, Classroom Connect and the U.S. operations of Heinemann, Heinemann Library and Greenwood Publishing Group. The new group brings Heinemann and Greenwood, which had reported to a division in the U.K., under the umbrella of the U.S. operation.
McGee will also take over direct management of Harcourt Supplemental Publishing. Steven Korte, who had been president and CEO of the unit, is leaving the company.
The new division will have estimated revenue of $400 million and encompass operations spread out in several states, including California, New York, Texas and Illinois. McGee will report to Pat Tierney, global CEO of Harcourt Education. Among the executives now reporting to McGee are trade division president Dan Farley; Pat Harrington, president and CEO of Classroom Connect; Ian Brown, head of Heinemann Library; and Wayne Smith, head of Heinemann and Greenwood. Those men had reported to Tierney since Harcourt Inc. president Tony Lucki left earlier this summer to become CEO of Houghton Mifflin.
In addition to being spread out geographically, the businesses coming together in the new group serve a wide range of markets. Classroom Connect, an online education company, would seem to have little in common with the trade publishing division. But in an e-mail to staff, Tierney stressed how they would strengthen each other.
"The new management structure will take advantage of the natural synergies among Harcourt's trade, library and professional development, and K–12 supplemental publishing operations, which possess an extraordinary wealth of high quality literature and complement each other with well-established positions in their respective markets," Tierney said.
McGee will be based in New York and Austin, initially spending the bulk of her time in Austin, where the supplemental house Steck-Vaughn is located.
McGee most recently was president of McGraw-Hill Education's Basal and Test Publishing group, leaving in March 2003. McGee moved to McGraw-Hill from Scholastic, where she spent a little more than a year as executive v-p of educational publishing. Before that, she was president of McDougal Littell, now a subsidiary of HM.
