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Licensed to thrill

01.02.08 Caroline Horn

When HarperCollins found itself without a managing director for its children's books division in late 2006, following Sally Gritten's departure for a new role in training, few could have predicted that it would take a year to fill the post. Yet it wasn't until October 2007 that Mario Santos, senior vice-president and head of business development at Chorion, joined the group as children's m.d.

Part of the difficulty in finding the right candidate was the wide portfolio required—the new boss would need to combine experience in licensing as well as editorial expertise. In the event, HC restructured, creating a strategic editorial role of publisher, to which it appointed Ann-Janine Murtagh. This freed it up to look outside the publishing arena for the new overall head. It turned to the world of brands and intellectual property, approaching Santos, who first worked with the group in 2001 when Chorion was developing the Noddy brand, and later on Agatha Christie.

Three months into his tenure, Santos' office does not have a lived-in feel yet, but he has been making headway on a raft of acquisitions. These include some—by all accounts expensive—celebrity signings including David Walliams and Coleen McLoughlin, as well as extending fiction deals with authors including Jenny Valentine, Joe Craig and Diana Wynne Jones.

Santos also plans to bring the different departments within HC's children's closer, with fiction and picture book teams working with branding and licensing, and developing more younger fiction ranges. "We will still be growing our traditional publishing in a traditional way, but there are areas where we can develop IP  [intellectual property] exploitation better," he says.

From Mr Men to ‘Milkshake'

Santos clearly relished his time in the fast-growing licensing industry. "Every month we had something new to work on, whether that was acquiring the Mr Men brand or cracking the US market, relaunching Agatha Christie in Japan or developing our relationship with Channel 5's ‘Milkshake'." He wants titles and authors to be viewed as brands and properties.

So what persuaded him to move into the rather more genteel waters of publishing? He points out that publishing was not new to him—his first job was with DK—and he missed the hands-on involvement that the book world offers. "An IP company is exciting, but it is always a little removed from the action—you acquire properties but it is the licensees who are doing the work at the coal face."

He also feels the traditionally measured book world is in line for a shake-up. "Publishing is in a very exciting space in terms of what is happening digitally." The shape of its companies, especially children's publishers, will be "very different" in five years' time, he predicts. "How people access our content is going to change dramatically and all publishers have to look at other ways of making content available."

Publishers are not yet doing enough to prepare for these changes, he warns. "Publishers argue that they need the formats and business models, that existing formats don't have the penetration they need to get to consumers. But there are a lot of other ways to reach consumers, such as social networking sites, where we can apply existing business models."

Santos is not, however, forseeing the end of the printed book. "I was at DK when Peter Kindersley announced the end of the book and set up the multimedia division—but I don't think the book is going anywhere; it's an incredible invention, but we need to add to it."

Risk-taker

Santos' taste for risk-taking developed early in his career, during a three-year stint teaching English in a remote town in China. He was one of just two foreigners in a town of 100,000 people and an object of real curiosity, but he loved the culture and stayed for much longer than planned. He developed a real appreciation of the Chinese approach to life and the future.

"In the West, when we think about the future, we see it as something to worry about—whereas in Asia the future is often seen as an opportunity to make things better. When you do business with people in China, Korea or Thailand, they are excited, interested and keen to take risks."

He says he felt a similar "spark" when talking to HC about the role of m.d. "In a lot of companies, decisions are based on the results of many meetings, lots of consumer research and many people coming up with a decision. Yes, you need research and you need to know what your consumers are saying, but every now and again you need to take risks over something you believe in and that is something that HarperCollins is happy to do."

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