Kate Wilson made c.e.o. of Headline
12.03.09 Philip Jones writing in The Bookseller

Kate Wilson, who last week resigned as group managing director of Scholastic UK, has been appointed to the newly created role of chief executive Headline Publishing Group, part of Hachette UK.

Wilson, who will join on 5th May, will report to Martin Neild, managing director of Headline and chief executive of Hodder & Stoughton and John Murray, until Neild steps back from full-time publishing in early 2010. Wilson will also join the Hachette UK main board. Once Neild relinquishes his full-time position at Hachette, Wilson will report direct to Hachette UK chief executive Tim Hely-Hutchinson. Headline will then become part of the same UK federal structure as the other UK publishing houses in the group.
Hachette said it had been talking to Wilson about the role for some time. Tim Hely Hutchinson, chief executive of Hachette UK, said: "Martin and I have been trying to attract Kate to our group for a considerable time . . . Martin has worked alongside me to recruit Kate and has persuaded me that her joining us makes it possible for him to move, as he has long discussed with me, to a part-time consultancy role." Wilson hinted to The Bookseller last week, in an interview that followed the news of her resignation from Scholastic, that she was looking for a role beyond children's publishing. In the Hachette press statement, she said: "I have long admired the Headline list - and, more generally, Hachette - from the outside, so the prospect of being inside is a great source of pleasure and excitement.” She will also have responsibility for Hachette Scotland.
Wilson, Hely Hutchinson, Kerr MacRae (deputy managing director and c.o.o.), Jane Morpeth (deputy managing director and publisher) and Neild will form a new strategic development group briefed to build rapidly on Headline’s publishing model, the group said.
Neild will continue as a consultant to Hachette UK until "at least the middle of 2011 and probably beyond".