Speakers

Emiliano Abramzon
USA Country Manager & Partner, Panarea Digital

As the USA Country Manager, Emiliano is responsible for driving new partnerships, and also responsible for Panarea’s Digital Publishing division.

Emiliano has over 15 years of experience in the technology and software development industry.  He started his career at Accenture as a consultant and then helped many successful technology start-ups  become a reality.  He holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and speaks fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Paula Allen
SVP Global Publishing, Nickelodeon Consumer Products

Paula Allen is a publishing executive with over 28 years experience in developing and managing publishing business units, along with author representation and contract negotiation. She has a proven career record of producing multimillion-dollar profits through book licensing sales and retail publishing sales and a solid understanding of the publishing business in the USA and major international markets in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Michael Cader
Publishers Lunch and PublishersMarketplace.com

Michael Cader is the creator of Publishers Lunch, the largest-circulation book publishing industry publication in the world, and its companion website PublishersMarketplace.com, which offers comprehensive news, databases, tools and more for book publishing professionals. For 15 years he created and produced over 300 books through his book packaging company, Cader Books.

Rowan Corben
Business Development Director, TouchyBooks/Genera

Nancy Laties Feresten
Sr. Vice President, Editor in Chief, National Geographic Children’s Books

Nancy Laties Feresten has been editing books for children and young adults for 25 years, concentrating on nonfiction and reference works in the sciences and history. She began her career at Harper & Row Junior Books Group and has since worked at Scientific American Books for Young Readers, Scholastic, and National Geographic. Since 1999 she has been at National Geographic Children’s Books, where she is currently Senior Vice President and Editor-in-Chief. The imprint specializes in nonfiction and reference for children ages three to fourteen, with special focuses on fun reference and ground-breaking narrative nonfiction.

Deborah A. Forte
President, Scholastic Media (SM)
Executive Vice President, Scholastic Inc.

Deborah A. Forte is President of Scholastic Media (SM), Executive Vice President of Scholastic Inc. and an award-winning producer of mutli-platform children’s media based on books, including movies, television programming, video games, software, applications and web sites and a leading marketer of children’s brands. Created by Ms. Forte in 1997, Scholastic Media, is the only full-scale digital production, branding and merchandising division in the children’s publishing industry that successfully develops, produces and markets children’s cross platform media and brands for the global marketplace. Ms. Forte is its lead creative and business executive.  Her productions have been distributed in over 60 countries and have won hundreds of awards including Emmys, Webbys, Humanitas, a Peabody and an Oscar.  Among her successful productions are award-winning television series such as Magic School Bus, Goosebumps, and Clifford; the feature film, The Golden Compass, the award-winning I Spy game franchise for NDS and Wii platforms as well as book and game apps. Ms.Forte’s latest initiative is leading the development and production of Scholastic’s eReading software platform and eBooks.

A proven leader in the children’s media landscape, Scholastic Media ranks as one of the foremost producers of quality, family-oriented multiplatform content and is an award-winning global  marketer of children’s brands. Ms. Forte oversees Scholastic Media’s three main divisions: The Digital Products Group, Scholastic Entertainment, Scholastic Marketing & Consumer Products.

Kelly Gallagher
VP of Publishing Services, RR Bowker

Kelly Gallagher serves as VP of Publishing Services at RR Bowker. In this role he manages the implementation of a host of Bowker business intelligence services, including the PubTrack consumer research panel reaching over 40,000 ‘e’ and ‘p’ book consumers. For the past year, he has been leading a team of researchers on a three-year initiative for the Book Industry Study Group to study consumer attitudes toward e-devices and digital content. This long-term trended study looks at consumer purchases on a quarterly basis as it seeks to understand the rate and shift to digital content. In addition to managing the consumer research panel, he oversees sales data collection and analytics tools for the higher education and religious book markets for Bowker. Beyond his role at Bowker, Kelly also serves as Research Chair for the BISG.

Russell Hampton
President, Disney Publishing Worldwide

R. Russell Hampton, Jr. was named President of Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW) in May 2006. In this role, he is responsible for worldwide operations and strategic direction for DPW’s publishing businesses around the world, including books, magazines, digital and Disney English.

Under Hampton’s leadership, DPW has maintained its position as the world’s largest children’s publisher. Hampton was instrumental in the creation of Disney English, an English language learning initiative which now encompasses 20 learning centers throughout China as well as a global retail licensing program. Hampton oversees DPW’s digital businesses, including eBooks and mobile apps, and also provides leadership for DPW’s core business of vertical and licensed books and magazines.

Barbara Marcus
Advisor, Open Road Media and Strategic Innovations Adviser, Penguin US

Barbara Marcus has spent most of her career in the area of Children’s Publishing and Media and is considered a leading business and marketing strategist in the areas of children’s content and distribution.

Barbara is currently serving as Advisor to Open Road in the area of children’s publishing and general strategy.  She is also currently Strategic Innovations Advisor to Penguin Books USA focusing in the area of new ventures and new publishing opportunities. She is representing Tuff Gong, the singer Bob Marley’s company, for literary projects. Ms. Marcus is on the Board of Knowledge Adventure, a children’s software and technology company and Media Source, a children’s books direct marketing company and publisher of Library Journal and School Library Journal.  She is also a Special Advisor to Forever Entertainment in Los Angeles, California.

Ralph Möllers
Owner and Publisher of Terzio Verlag, Munich

In 1997 Moellers founded Terzio, his third (hence the name) publishing venture, in partnership with his wife, Iris Bellinghausen. Today Terzio is also the leading publisher of children’s music books. Its bestselling series “Ritter Rost” will be an international feature movie in the fall of 2012.

With book2look International GmbH, a joint venture with WITS Interactive, Mumbai, Terzio has recently developed a highly innovative online marketing tool for books and other media. The business unit book2look publishing offers sophisticated development and editorial services for enhanced eBooks and Apps (iOS and Android).

Térence Mosca
TM Consulting- Consultant for Gallimard Jeunesse Publishing

Térence Mosca is the founder of TM Consulting, a firm providing brand extension strategy and digital distribution support to entertainment companies. Current publishing clients include Gallimard Jeunesse Publishing. Previously Térence was a Senior International Brand Manager at Ubisoft, the Licensing Manager at Editions Gallimard, and the European Marketing Manager at The Walt Disney Company. He lives in Paris.

Jennifer Perry
Vice President, Worldwide Publishing, Sesame Workshop

Jennifer A. Perry is the Vice President of Worldwide Publishing at Sesame Worksop. She manages all editorial content and business initiatives for both print and digital publishing.

Rick Richter

Rick Richter is a recognized leader in children’s intellectual property development, digital strategy and a seasoned publishing executive. Rick co-founded Candlewick Press for parent company Walker Books in 1990, and headed the S&S Children’s group in the USA for over a decade. Rick founded Ruckus Media in 2010 – an venture backed and award winning digital media company with operations in the U.S and Delhi, India.

Peter Schrøder
Digital Director, Egmont Kids Media

Peter holds an MBA/MIEM from SDA Bocconi in Italy and has years of industry experience in new media, telecommunications, TV, software development, entertainment, and consultancy services. Prior to joining Egmont, he was Associate Partner in Partnerkapital (VC fund – matchingfund for business angels), Commercial Director at NDS Denmark, and participated in business development at British Telecommunications.

Woody Sears

Woody’s knowledge of the consumer and mobile technology industries has proven essential to the growth of the company’s digital publishing platform. After co-founding FrogDogMedia, the company’s iStoryTime digital publishing grew tremendously, leading to a merger with Germany-based zuuka GmbH, resulting in the world’s largest publisher of mobile children’s books. Under the name zuuka, the newly formed company utilizes the largely successful iStoryTime name as its flagship label and joint brand.Woody earned an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University and a B.A. from the University of Colorado.

Lorraine Shanley
President, Market Partners International

Lorraine Shanley is President of Market Partners International, a consulting firm that specializes in traditional and digital publishing in the US and internationally. One of the top recruiters in the industry, MPI also works with publishers, brands, cultural institutions and associations, and technology firms on various aspects of content development and distribution. Shanley is a member (and past president) of Women’s Media Group, and is on the Advisory Board of New York University’s Publishing Program and the board of Fourth Story Media, a New York-based web development company. She graduated from the University of Rochester and received her M.A. from the University of Virginia, where she serves on the Jefferson Fellowship selection committee.

Mike Shatzkin
Founder & CEO, The Idea Logical Company

Mike Shatzkin is the Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company and a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. In his nearly 50 years in publishing, he has played almost all the roles: bookseller, author, agent, production director, sales and marketing director, and, for the past 30 years, consultant. His insights about how the industry functions and how it accommodates digital change form the basis of all of the company’s consulting efforts.

Michael Tamblyn
EVP, Content, Sales and Merchandising, Kobo Inc.

At Kobo Michael is responsible for sales, publisher and industry relations, content acquisition, and the merchandising experience across all of Kobo’s web and mobile services. He co-founded Canada’s first online bookstore Bookshelf.ca, which was purchased by Indigo Books & Music in 1998, where he served as vice president of online operations. Most recently, Michael was the founding CEO of the supply chain agency BookNet Canada, where he launched the national sales reporting service BNC SalesData and authored the publishing technology call-to-arms, “Six Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better.”

Michael has a Masters in Business Administration from University of Western Ontario.

Zoe Watkins
Managing Director, FourteenFiftyFour Ltd.

Zoe Watkins is the Managing Director of FourteenFiftyFour Ltd, an intellectual property house specialising in literary brands. Zoe began her career at Waterstone’s, following which she worked as Publishing Manager for Ian Fleming Publications, before starting FourteenFiftyFour Ltd in 2008 with Corinne Turner. FourteenFiftyFour’s properties include Booksurfers – an innovative digital adventure series for the 9-12 market – and the literary estate of Willard Price.