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Hodder-Williams and Morpeth step up, but Headline faces job cuts

24.11.09 | Catherine Neilan

Hachette UK has announced a large-scale restructuring of Headline, which includes a number of staff promotions, while cutting back across its non-fiction list and making up to 20 redundancies. Key among the promotions is Jamie Hodder-Williams, who has been appointed chief executive of Hodder and Headline, replacing Martin Neild who is due to retire early next year.

Hodder-Williams had already been earmarked to replaced Neild at Hodder, but will now take on the reins of Headline also, following the departure of Kate Wilson after just five months earlier this year. The restructure also sees Jane Morpeth, currently joint deputy m.d of Headline, promoted to managing director of the group. The move comes one day after it was announced her fellow deputy m.d Kerr MacRae was leaving for Simon & Schuster. The deputy m.d role will no longer exist.

James Horobin is being promoted from UK sales and marketing director to UK and international sales director, reporting to Morpeth. Marion Donaldson is moving from fiction publishing director to director of publishing, again reporting to Morpeth. Helen Dance is promoted from her role of c.o.o for H&S to c.o.o for both Hodder and Headline, while Jason Bartholomew, director of rights at H&S, is now director of rights for both imprints.

In addition, Imogen Taylor, publishing director at Pan Macmillan, is joining Headline as publishing director. The publisher is also recruiting a creative director.

However, the company has also announced that the non-fiction programme "especially in relation to ghost-written celebrity and sports memoirs" is to be cut back. The programme will continue to focus on true-life memoir, adventure, history, business books, humour, lifestyle, quality true crime and non-fiction written by Headline novelists.

Hachette UK chief executive Tim Hely Hutchinson acknowledged there would be "the departure of a small number of valued and respected colleagues" as a result. A spokesperson confirmed this would be "less than 20". Any job losses will be subject to consultation. The company said: "Every effort will be made to minimise the impact on individual members of staff, including by finding jobs elsewhere in the Hachette group where possible."

Hely Hutchinson said: "The changes we are announcing today build on Headline’s entrepreneurial spirit and its reputation as a publisher of great fiction and other story-telling, giving greater clarity to our publishing plans and to the structure of the team who will implement them.

"While I very much regret that these changes will involve the departure of a small number of valued and respected colleagues, who will be leaving with our warmest wishes for their future, I am confident we have put in place the plans and the people to create outstanding prospects for Headline."

Hely Hutchinson added: "Jane, who epitomises the Headline hallmarks of publishing with passion and total commitment to our authors, will lead a creative and talented publishing company to become an unstoppable force in publishing."

Morpeth said: "In order to achieve the great ambitions my colleagues and I have for Headline, we are calling on all the knowledge and experience available to us within the Hachette group and outside. The board I have been asked to lead includes this ‘management of all the talents’ and I am looking forward hugely to welcoming Jamie, Helen, Imogen and Jason to Headline and to working with them, my newly promoted colleagues and all our dedicated and talented staff at this exciting new stage in our history."

Hachette headline Home Catherine Neilan Jane Morpeth Kerr MacRae Jamie Hodder-Williams