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Rolf Grisebach is to take on the newly-created role of c.e.o. at publisher Thames & Hudson.
Grisebach has previously run Pearson's operations in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and before that headed Macmillan's $250m education and STM division in the USA. He begins at T&H in September.
Grisebach's appointment comes as Jamie Camplin, currently T&H m.d., retires at the age of 65. Meanwhile chairman and deputy chairman Thomas Neurath and Constance Kaine are to step down from their posts. Former sales and marketing director Tim Evans will become chairman; Susanna Reisz Neurath, who led T&H's foreign rights department in the 1990s, will become deputy chairman.
Camplin will be continuing to "support the business into the future, so the T&H publication programme will continue to be the beneficiary of his unique international contacts".
Neurath said of Grisebach's appointment: "Yet again T&H is blessed by good fortune. Six months ago Rolf and I didn't know one another and here we now are setting out on the next chapter with someone at the helm whose background and experience couldn't suit T&H and its cosmopolitan convictions better."
With a PhD in intellectual property law and 20 years experience in US and European publishing, as well as "an art-connected family", Grisebach is well suited for the role, Neurath said. He added: "Added to this is his first-hand experience transitioning entirely print-based programmes to ones with strong digital revenue streams, partly from online learning."
Camplin said: "One of the many things about Thames & Hudson that I have always loved is that—as an institution—it has been too preoccupied with making the future to have much time for blowing its own trumpet. But perhaps once in 44 years—my time at T&H, so far—an exception might be allowed.
"This is a remarkable publishing house, whose brand is built on the magic of substance, not the base-metal of marketing-speak. And it is fortunate indeed that it has a new c.e.o. so multifariously talented to protect, to nurture and to develop it."
Illustrated publisher T&H is privately owned by the Neurath family. Thomas Neurath is the son of founder Walter Neurath, who originally set up the company.