Bookouture hires Chris Lucraft as publishing innovation director

Hachette UK’s digital first commercial publisher Bookouture has hired Chris Lucraft into the newly-created role of publishing innovation director, focusing on AI operations and processes. Lucraft is currently digital operations director at Storm, where he has worked since 2023. He originally joined Bookouture in 2017 as digital operations manager and was promoted to head of digital operations and distribution in 2021. He will join in April 2026.

In his new role, Lucraft will focus on operational AI innovation and will work closely with Hachette’s AI Steering Committee "to ensure the responsible implementation of operational AI, while upholding Hachette’s commitment to the protection of creative work and human-authored content". He will report to Jenny Geras, managing director.

Geras said: "I’m so excited to welcome Chris back to Bookouture. He transformed our operations systems, and took Bookouture from its manual era to its automation era. He knows our business and our authors inside out, and is the perfect person to lead us through our next chapter of innovation."

Lucraft said: "It’s been inspiring to watch Bookouture’s incredible growth from afar over the past few years. They combine a focus on empowering creativity with a phenomenally talented team, data-driven decision-making, and operational excellence.

"That mix, along with their author and reader-led values, creates so much opportunity for impactful innovation. Innovation has always been embedded in everything Bookouture does – right from the very beginning. I’m hugely excited to contribute to that and to help explore what more we can achieve together at a time of seemingly endless possibility."