Penguin Random House merges UK children’s divisions

Thursday, 16 January 2014 Books+Publishing

Penguin Random House has announced that it will merge the children’s divisions of Penguin and Random House UK. The publisher said in a statement on 15 January that the combined children’s division will be led by Francesca Dow, currently managing director of Penguin children’s division, who has been appointed as managing director and who will report to Penguin Random House UK CEO Tom Weldon. Current managing director of Random House Children’s Publishers Philippa Dickinson has been appointed to the new role of consultant children’s publisher and will have editorial responsibility for key projects and authors, ahead of her planned retirement in 2015. Weldon said in the statement that Penguin Random House UK plans to ‘invest significantly’ in children’s publishing over the next few years. ‘We believe that having one really brilliant and dynamic children’s division will allow us to compete even more effectively on behalf of all our authors, illustrators and licensing partners for the attention of young readers in an environment which now offers them an unlimited choice of entertainment and information,’ said Weldon. While Penguin Random House has completed a number of acquisitions since the merger of the two companies in July 2013, this is the first announcement from the publisher relating to the merging of editorial divisions.

Category: International news