Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy dies

In the US, Simon & Schuster (S&S) president and CEO Carolyn Reidy has died suddenly after experiencing a heart attack. Reidy was 71.

Simon & Schuster Australia told Books+Publishing the company is ‘shocked and deeply saddened by the news of our fearless leader’s passing today’.

‘Carolyn Reidy was an inspiring trailblazer and giant of our industry,’ S&S Australia said. ‘She was a great supporter of us in Australia and keenly interested in how we were growing and evolving the business in recent years. Our thoughts are with her family, loved ones and colleagues across Simon & Schuster.’

In a statement, S&S executive vice president, operations and chief financial officer Dennis Eulau said Reidy was ‘both an exemplary leader and a supremely talented and visionary publishing executive’.

Eulau said, ‘As a publisher and a leader, Carolyn pushed us to stretch to do just that little bit more; to do our best and then some for our authors, in whose service she came to work each day with an unbridled and infectious enthusiasm and great humor.

‘Her fierce intelligence and curiosity, and her determination to know everything about a given subject if it could help us to be better, were matched by her complete and total accessibility … colleagues in every corner of our company always felt that they had a first-person relationship with her, and that they could reach out to her to discuss any subject and receive a thoughtful response in return.’

Reidy joined S&S in 1992 as trade division president, after previous roles as president and publisher of Avon Books, and publisher at Vintage Books. Among the authors S&S said Reidy ‘championed to acclaim and success’ were Pulitzer Prize-winners Anthony Doerr, Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough; world figures and journalists including Hillary Clinton, Bob Woodward and Walter Isaacson; and bestselling novelists including Mary Higgins Clark, Stephen King and Rhonda Byrne, among many others.

Category: International news