21 August 2013
A man can jump ship but can he straddle two vessels? The appointment of Faber CEO Stephen Page to the board of rival publisher Bloomsbury as an independent non-executive director has raised eyebrows in the books trade.
“There are a fair few precedents for publishers sitting on one another’s boards, though usually it’s someone from a corporate publisher sitting on the board of a much smaller one,” says Liz Thomson of BookBrunch.
“This does seem a much more surprising appointment as they are competitors and Faber is arguably one of the most innovative publishers in the indie sector — of which Bloomsbury is, of course, a member. But non-competitive? They have too much in common.”
