Publishers Lunch

Hachette Book Group has hired Wibke Grütjen as svp and chief marketing officer, starting March 25 and reporting to ceo Michael Pietsch. Grütjen will lead the marketing strategy team, and joins the management board. She has been vp of digital marketing at Macmillan since 2010. Alyson Forbes, who had been leading marketing strategy on an interim basis (following the departure of Heather Fain) has been promoted to vp, executive director of marketing strategy.

After co-locating in mid-2017 with plans to "work very closely together" without actually merging, Lucas Alexander Whitley and TV and digital agency Factual Management have now taken the next step. They have formally combined to create The Soho Agency. LAW's Philippa Milnes-Smith serves as managing director of the new agency.

Todd Berman moves from Penguin Random House Publisher Services over to the Random House Sales Group, as vp, imprint sales director responsible for Crown Trade, Crown Forum, Currency, WaterBrook, Multnomah, Image, and Convergent. VP, group sales director Christine Edwards imprint sales director Maren McCamley will continue to be responsible for Clarkson Potter, Ten Speed Press, Harmony, and Rodale Books, with the former having additional oversight for Penguin Random House Audio sales.

At Catapult, Soft Skull Press, and Counterpoint Press, associate editor Kendall Storey is now foreign rights manager as well, as the lines move foreign rights in-house.

Charlotte Lyman has joined Page Street Publishing as publicist. She was previously digital marketing specialist at Chelsea Green Publishing.

Tayari Jones will serve as Author Ambassador for Independent Bookstore Day, on Saturday, April 27.

Donald Keene, 96, "whose translations of Japanese literature into English and prodigious academic output helped define the study of the subject and made him a celebrity in Japan," died on Sunday in Tokyo