Random House announces publicity and marketing restructure

Tuesday, 18 September 2012 Books+Publishing

Random House Australia has announced a restructure of its publicity and marketing teams, with four staff members moving into new roles at the start of next year.

Random House Australia and New Zealand marketing and publicity director Brett Osmond said in a statement that Karen Reid, currently head of publicity for the publisher’s Australian operations, will add marketing to her job title and will lead ‘a unified marketing and publicity team’. Senior marketer Tobie Mann, and her team, will report to Reid who will continue to report to Osmond.

‘The distinction between marketing and publicity has changed dramatically over the years, and this unified approach to Random House Australia’s promotional planning and activity will help achieve better outcomes for authors and their books,’ said Osmond.

The publisher has also created the new position of head of digital marketing and has appointed Justin Ractliffe, currently sales and marketing manager for children’s books, to the role. Reporting to Ractliffe will be marketing project manager Julia Fett and her team. Ractliffe will report to Osmond, who is currently responsible for the digital marketing division.

‘The challenges and opportunities that digital presents to our industry are profound,’ said Osmond. ‘Under Justin’s leadership, Random House Australia will have the renewed capacity to drive our digital investment and development agenda.’

In children’s books, Angela Duke’s role of business development manager will be expanded to include the sales manager responsibilities, and publicist Dorothy Tonkin will be promoted to the role of children’s marketing and publicity manager. Reporting to Dorothy will be Louise McClean and Sarana Behan. Both Angela and Dorothy will report to director of children’s books Julie Burland.

Reid told Bookseller+Publisher that all of the new appointments will come into effect on 1 January 2013. Reid also said that there have been no redundancies as a result of the restructure.

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