Thursday, January 29, 2015

IAN DRAPER (NOT A EULOGY) - Kevin Chapman pays tribute


 Ian Draper leaves Whitcoulls for the second time at the end of January, and because he has been largely behind the scenes to many publishers for the last few years I suspect that it is possible he leaves without knowing how important he has been.

It is a fair bet that without Ian’s intervention the Normans may well not have bought Whitcoulls, and fought to save this iconic New Zealand business. And Ian has fought hard as well, making unpopular (in the book industry) decisions to diversify the product in the front-of-store in order to keep stores solvent when book sales tumbled. Ian has a passion for this business, and he has been very focussed on saving what was a sick company when it came back into NZ hands.

Ian started at Whitcoulls in 1995, and was promoted through to MD in 2001 and then MD of the Angus & Robertson Whitcoulls Group in 2005. Wanting to come home from Melbourne he left in 2008 before ARW became RedGroup and settled down to time off and his other businesses, importing caravans and moving houses

Thankfully he became engaged again when RedGroup went into Administration and he helped the Normans buy the NZ business, which he has run since 2011.

Ian has massive support among his staff, and deserves the appreciation of our industry. He would not say he was a big reader (!) but he is a supporter of books as part of Whitcoulls. I have always found him a decent, kind and fair man, even when I accused him of “industry vandalism” for leaving Bookscan. Ian just said that he had made the decision that was necessary for his business, and we were all entitled to our opinion, and never used it against me in any way.

We are funny about Whitcoulls in this industry. We seem to feel an ownership of it, and that it has a responsibility to fulfil our own wishes for the business. Ian (along with the Normans and his team) has shepherded it through tough times and enabled us to keep 60 plus bookstores still operating. I think we all owe him a substantial vote of thanks.


Kevin Chapman

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