Macmillan Science and Education, a global division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, has announced the appointment of Ken Michaels as Global Chief Operating Officer (COO). Ken will join Macmillan Science and Education's global leadership team and report to Chief Executive Officer, Annette Thomas. He will be based in New York and London and will join the group at the end of the month.
In his role as Chief Operating Officer, Ken will support this new business structure and ensure operational excellence. He will have responsibility for all of Macmillan's Science and Education's global operations. These include: legal, human resources, facilities management and supply-chain activities, including production, warehousing, distribution and order fulfilment. In addition, it includes the Macmillan Science and Education global finance function, as well as Macmillan UK finance shared services group. Ken will also create the overarching roadmap for the transformation of all Macmillan Science and Education's critical business systems.
Ken joins from Hachette Book Group (HBG), where he was President and COO, based in New York. At HBG he transformed the business into an efficient technology-enabled digital publisher. He spent his early professional career at General Electric, a training ground in operational excellence, and then moved to McGraw-Hill companies, where he held various senior executive operational leadership roles in the Corporate Shared Services, B2B and Education Segments and at the Board Level driving global operational effectiveness across media, education and Standard and Poor's.
Macmillan Science and Education was formed a year ago to unite all of Macmillan's scientific, scholarly, academic and education businesses and is pursuing an innovation-led strategy for growth. This new appointment follows a number of changes it has already made to its structure to better position itself to achieve this strategic ambition.
