Friday, May 23, 2008

New Random House chief “will protect autonomy"

BERTELSMANN'S CHAIRMAN AND CEO, Hartmut Ostrowski said this week that the appointment of a new Chairman and CEO of Random House worldwide, Markus Dohle, will not affect the autonomy of its many different imprints. Ostrowski made the comments shortly after it was announced that the 39 year-old CEO of Bertelsmann's print company Mohn Media will take over from Peter Olson.

"Markus Dohle will grant the publishers the same independence and publishing freedom as his predecessors did. This autonomy is crucial to the success of Random House - and of Bertelsmann," Ostrowski told Bertelsmann's BeNet site. "Markus is a highly motivated entrepreneur, he is a problem-solver, an innovator, a communicator, and very smart. He is used to setting ambitious goals and achieving them with his team. These are the reasons he has been appointed to head Random House, not because of any book publishing experience he might have. Random House needs a man with his skill set now.

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