Charkin Leaves Macmillan for Bloomsbury

By Andrew Rosenheim -- Publishers Weekly, 9/27/2007 6:52:00 AM

In a move that shocked the U.K. publishing industry, Richard Charkin, the CEO of Macmillan UK, announced his resignation yesterday in order to become the executive director of Bloomsbury Plc, the U.K. publisher of Harry Potter. The change comes on the 10th anniversary of Charkin’s stewardship of Macmillan, during which he became renowned for his advocacy of digital change and for his trenchant criticism of trade publishing practices—especially the level of advances paid authors. The only U.K. publishing chief executive to have his own blog, Charkin wrote daily commentary on publishing issues, Macmillan’s progress, and his own travels to Macmillan publishing operations all over the world, which attracted more than one million visitors.

Charkin’s arrival at Bloomsbury comes less than a month after Bloomsbury CEO and founder Nigel Newton relinquished his role as chairman, appointing Jeremy Wilson of Barclays bank as nonexecutive chairman. In his new role, Charkin will have responsibility for the operations of Bloomsbury UK and USA, A&C Black (the publisher of the British Who’s Who acquired in 2000) and Berlin Verlag.

According to Newton, Charkin will become Bloomsbury’s “Minister for Growth” and is expected to spearhead acquisitions for the company, flush with cash from the continuing success of Harry Potter. A maverick figure—most recently in the news for “borrowing” a Google computer at BEA in June to demonstrate his view of that company’s attitude toward book copyrights—Charkin moved into trade publishing in the late 1980s after more than a decade in the academic division of Oxford University Press, having begun his publishing career as a science editor at Harrap.
 
Candidates for acquisition he is expected to pursue are thought more likely to come from the reference and education sectors of publishing than from trade.

At Macmillan, Mike Barnard, who retired after 35 years at the company, will return as deputy chairman until a new CEO is appointed.