Meredith Adams appointed head of social impact at PRH UK

Meredith Adams, social impact manager at Penguin Random House (PRH) UK, will step up to become head of social impact from mid-May. This comes as Siena Parker, PRH UK’s social impact director, leaves the business after nine years, taking up a new role as global head of sustainability at Pret A Manger. 

Adams, who will now lead the publisher’s social impact team and strategy, joined PRH in 2021. She previously worked in diversity, inclusion and sustainability roles at the investment management company Abrdn.

Adams said of her appoinment: “Together with the talented team, we will continue with our work to give everyone equal access to books, build readers of the future, and publish books for everyone. We have a busy 2024 ahead, with several of our programmes at key moments, such as the recent transformation of the 1,000th primary school library and launching a new WriteNow programme to discover science fiction and fantasy writers.”

Parker joined the publisher as corporate responsibility manager in 2015, and has since built a team and responsible business strategy “from the ground up”, PRH said. She launched Penguin’s partnership with the Runnymede Trust, Lit in Colour, which aims to support schools in teaching more books by writers of colour; created WriteNow, Penguin’s campaign to find and nurture new writers from backgrounds under-represented in publishing; and co-founded Libraries for Primaries with the National Literacy Trust.

Rebecca Sinclair, chief brand and communications officer at PRH, said: “I am excited to work with Meredith and the team to shape what that looks like for the next chapter, including our ambition to ensure that every primary school has a library and to encourage more teaching of writers of colour in secondary schools, and I will be forever grateful that we had a chapter entitled ‘Siena’ that propelled us forward in being a socially responsible and impactful brand.”

Parker added: “In stepping up to lead my incredible team Meredith brings a wealth of experience and skills across ESG (environment, social, governance) issues. I know she will continue to build on the work we’ve started and take it to new heights.”