Jane Friedman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jane Friedman is the President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, one of the world's leading English-language publishers and a subsidiary of News Corporation. She joined HarperCollins in November 1997, overseeing HarperCollins worldwide book publishing including operations in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India.
Since joining HarperCollins, Friedman has directed the company to nine years of continuous growth, record-breaking profits and the industry's highest profit margins. Over the course of her career she has embraced innovation at every turn. Under Friedman's leadership HarperCollins launched Publishing+, a way to organically grow the business and create a truly global publishing company. Most recently, Friedman's decision to create a global digital warehouse, including digital files of its core backlist and future books, has positioned the company as a leader in the industry and is propelling HarperCollins into the 21st century of publishing.
Friedman, who graduated from Hewlett High School in 1963 and earned a B.A. degree in English from New York University in 1967, came to HarperCollins from Random House, where she was Executive Vice President of Random House, Inc., Executive Vice President of the Knopf Publishing Group, Publisher of Vintage Books, and Founder and President of Random House Audio Publishing.
She is a Vice-Chair of the Entertainment, Media and Communications Division of the UJA. She serves on the board of the Association of American Publishers, Literacy Partners, Yale University Press, and Poets & Writers, Inc. She is also a member of the American Advisory Committee of the Jerusalem International Book Fair, the Advisory Committee to the MFA program in creative writing at The New School and The Committee of 200.
Friedman has earned a myriad (!) of awards and has been recognized by numerous international, national, and local organizations and publications. In addition to being named one of Fast Company's Fast 50, she was recently featured in New York magazine's The Influentials—charting the people "whose ideas, power, and sheer will are changing New York." She has also been chosen by the New York Post as one of New York's 50 Most Powerful Women and named one of New York's 100 Most Influential Business Leaders by Crain's New York Business. In addition, she was named one of America's 100 Most Important Women by Ladies' Home Journal. Entertainment Weekly recognized her as one of the 101 Most Powerful People in Entertainment for several years running. Additionally, Friedman was included on Vanity Fair's list of 200 Women Legends, Leaders and Trailblazers, in honor of her Legendary tendency to Blaze away at her colleagues.
Ms. Friedman lives in Manhattan and East Hampton with her "partner of many years" Jeff Stone. She has two sons - Stefan Friedman, President of Strategic Communications at KnickerbockerSKD and Bradley Friedman, who will graduate from Georgetown University Law Center in May 2006, and two stepsons: Dylan Stone, a law school student at UCLA and Morgan Stone, an associate at Vanguard.[1]
