Executive Biographies
Board of Directors
Global Office Management
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Oxford, United Kingdom
René Olivieri, CEO
Robert Campbell, President
Chris Hall, CFO
Blackwell Publishing Inc
Malden, MA, USA (Boston Office)
Gordon Tibbitts III, President
Blackwell Publishing Professional
Ames, IO, USA (Ames office)
Jon Walmsley, Director of Professional Publishing
Blackwell Publishing Asia
Carlton Victoria, Australia (Melbourne Office)
Mark Robertson, President, Blackwell Publishing Asia
Management Committee
Management Committee Biographies
René Olivieri - Chief Executive Officer
In the 1970s René received his BA from University of Oregon, MA from Johns Hopkins University, and worked as editor for MIT Press. In the 1980s and 1990s successively he held positions of Publisher, Editorial Director, Deputy Managing Director and Managing Director for Blackwell Publishers. René became CEO of Blackwell Science in 2000 and of Blackwell Publishing in 2001. As a co-opted member of the Council of ALPSP (Association of Learned Professional and Society Publishers), René represents associate members. He is a frequent speaker and author on current topics in publishing that include published articles on the economics of journal publishing, site licenses, archiving, ethics, mergers and acquisitions, learned societies, and electronic publishing.
Bob Campbell joined Blackwell Science directly from university in 1968 and became Editorial Director in 1978, progressing to Managing Director in 1987 and then President of Blackwell Publishing in 2001. He has always been interested in new technology and copyright, which led him to being Chairman of the Adonis Consortium throughout the 1980s. Bob has authored/co-authored three books and many articles on publishing. He is a past Chairman of the STM Association and is currently Treasurer of CrossRef, Chairman of INASP and on the Council of the Publishers Association, PLS and the JISC. He recently received an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University for his contribution to publishing.
Chris Hall joined Blackwell Publishing in February 2005. Chris spent 8 years with Rothmans International culminating as Group Financial Director for the Caribbean business. During his 12 years with Oxford University Press he held several senior management and director positions in financial operations finishing as Deputy Group Finance Director. Most recently he was CFO of Earthport plc. An Oxford graduate, Chris holds a masters degree in physics from Jesus College and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants having qualified with Coopers & Lybrand.
Gordon Tibbitts - President, Blackwell Publishing Inc. (US)
Gordon Tibbitts joined Blackwell Publishing as President in 2000 playing a major role in developing corporate technology initiatives, including web-based content development. He held executive positions with Aster Publishing, Advanstar, and The Thomson Corporation. Gordon is currently a member of the Association of American Publishers, Professional Scholarly Publishing, and CrossRef. He is a frequent speaker on electronic publishing, and cooperative publishing initiatives including archiving, and CrossRef search. He holds a BS degree in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Oregon.
Mark Robertson - President, Blackwell Publishing Asia
Marks career began at Academic Press in London 30 years ago, before moving on to Thomas Nelson in Melbourne. In 1982 he set up the Blackwell Science Australian office and led the companys expansion into Asia with the subsequent opening of an office in Japan and then in China. Mark was appointed President of Blackwell Publishing Asia shortly after the 2001 merger of Blackwell Science and Blackwell Publishers.
Steven Hall - Journal Sales and Marketing Director
Steven Hall joined Blackwell Publishing in October 2004 and is a member of Blackwell's management committee. In the 1990s he was Sales and Marketing Director and then Managing Director of Chadwyck-Healey, a pioneer publisher of electronic databases. More recently, Steven was Senior Vice President, Publishing and Publisher Relations for ProQuest Information and Learning, with responsibility for its higher education publishing, licensing and international sales and marketing. Steven has a degree in German Language and Literature from the University of Leeds and also speaks French and Italian. He serves on the Executive of the Electronic Publishers Forum, which is part of the Publishers Association (PA), and has represented the PA on matters of legal deposit, copyright and database rights.
Jon Walmsley, Ph.D. - Director of Professional Publishing
Jon started his publishing career at the independent Scottish publisher, Blackie and Son Ltd. In the mid 1990s he was Publisher and Director for Chapman and Hall (part of The Thomson Group) where he directed the publishing of journals, books, and electronic products. In 1998 Jon joined Blackwell Science as Director of the Professional Division, becoming part of the management committee of Blackwell Publishing Ltd in 2001. He is a founding member of the STM master-class organizing committee, a judge on the Book House journals course, and presenter of publishers' views on open access. Jon holds honors degrees in chemistry and philosophy, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from The University of Nottingham.
Andrew Robinson, Ph.D. - Director of Medical Publishing
Andy Robinson is the Director of Medical Publishing at Blackwell and a member of the company's Management Committee. He is responsible for the extensive list of 130 medical journals, over 1,000 books and 21 websites published annually from Blackwell's offices in the UK, US, Denmark and Germany. Prior to leading the Medical Division he was a publisher of books and journals in gastroenterology, hematology, endocrinology and diabetes, and began in editorial by publishing books for medical students. Andy joined Blackwell in 1991 as a Production Editor after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge.
Philip Carpenter - Academic and Science Books Director
Philip Carpenter read English at Oxford University where he won the Beddington Prize. He joined Blackwell Publishers in 1979, worked in various Sales roles, and was successively appointed Humanities Publisher, Editorial Director and Books Director. He was also a Director of Blackwell Publishers Inc. and has been Acting Chairman of Blackwell Polity Ltd. He is responsible for the company's global book publishing for Higher Education in the Humanities, Social Science and Science and is also a Director of Blackwell Publishing Asia.
Sue Corbett - Academic & Science Journals Director
Sue Corbett has been with Blackwell for 25 years. She is a member of Blackwell Publishing's management committee and is the head of the global science and social science journals division. Sue is a member of the editorial board for Learned Publishing and her speaking engagements have included UKSG, American Council of Learned Societies, ALPSP, and the Association of Subscriptions Agents.
Mike Fenton - Operations Director
Mike has been with Blackwell since 1994. Prior to this he was a director at Macmillan Distribution and the CFO at Times Mirror International Publishers. Mike is responsible for the Technology, Customer Services, Distribution and Production departments and represents the company's operations on the Management Committee. He is a qualified ACMA accountant.
Non-Executive Chairman's Biography
Nigel Blackwell - Chairman
Nigel joined Blackwell Science in 1969 straight from Oxford University. He transferred to B.H. Blackwell (Bookshops/Library Supply) in 1972, made Director in 1974, Joint Managing Director from 1980-83, and Managing Director of The Blackwell Group and Retail Group from 1983-89. In 1982 he became Chairman of Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Blackwell Science in 1990, Munksgaard (Copenhagen) in 1994, and since July 2001, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Non-Executive Directors' Biographies
Philip Blackwell
Philip was CEO of Blackwell Limited, the international book distribution and retail business from January 2000 to January 2006. He began his career with D. Dalton Booksellers in the USA before returning to the UK to work in a number of roles in bookselling and publishing including Blackwell Publishers, Harper Collins and HodderHeadline.
Prior to joining Blackwell, Philip was Director of the eBusiness & CRM team at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, the largest European IT services and management consulting company. He has a MSc. and is a Sloan Fellow of the London Business School.
Dr Nicola Quinnen
Nicola is a freelance strategy and communications consultant. She spent two years working with the management team of Blackwell Science on company culture, organisation structure and long-term strategic planning and joined the Board in 1999 as a Non-Executive Director when she left the company to work on a freelance basis. Prior to joining Blackwell Science she had worked for 15 years as a communications consultant in the healthcare sector and was responsible for co-founding and growing the healthcare strategy and communications consultancy, Bullet Communications, to become one of the leading consultancies in this sector in the UK. Bullet Communications was purchased by Blackwell Science in 1997 and merged with Blackwell Healthcare Communications in 1999 to form Avenue HKM.
Alan Munro
Alan trained as a biochemist at Cambridge but has worked most of his active life in the field of immunology. He co-authored an advanced text book in immunology which was published by Blackwell in 1981. After nearly 30 years of research and teaching for Cambridge University and the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, he left the University to set up a Biotech company - Cantab Pharmaceuticals PLC - in Cambridge in 1989. Cantab listed on NASDAQ in 1991 and in London in 1992. After over six years as the CSO of Cantab, he left the company to take up the position of Master of Christ's College, Cambridge in 1995, finally retiring in July of 2002. Apart from being on the Board of Blackwell Publishing Ltd he is on the Board of two Biotech companies in Cambridge and consults for the Economic Development Board of the Singapore Government and for Abingworth Management, a UK based venture capital company specialising in Biotech.
David Ure
For nearly 36 years, David Ure served in many leadership roles at Reuters PLC, most recently in the capacity of Strategic Advisor to the Reuters' Board. He also served as the Executive Director responsible for Reuters Trading Systems Division and Group technical strategy. From 1992 to 1998, Ure was responsible for Group marketing and technical policy. Before that he headed Reuters operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa. He has intimate knowledge of the environment and pressures surrounding electronic delivery of commercial and financial information against strong competition in a marketplace in itself undergoing dynamic change. He is chairman of two venture capitalist owned companies - Iris Financial Solutions and NetEconomy - and serves as a non executive director on the board of Independent Television News.
