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spokesman confirmed that the choice of Greeley marks the first
time in memory that Simon & Schuster had hired a CEO from
outside the company. The 62-year-old Greeley succeeds Jonathan
Karp, who announced last year that he was stepping down to found
his own imprint at the publishing house, Simon Six. Simon &
Schuster, which celebrated its centennial in 2024, is home to
Stephen King, Colleen Hoover and Bob Woodward and many other
bestselling and prize-winning authors.
While Karp is a longtime editor and publisher who had previously
served as head of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint, Greeley
has a background in business and investment. He spent nearly 20
years at Amazon, where his positions included vice president of
Amazon Prime. In 2018, he left to serve as president of Airbnb's
Homes division. More recently, he was president and COO of the
biotechnology startup Opentrons and CEO of Thrasio, a consumer
goods company.
“Greg Greeley is a talented and strategic leader with
wide-ranging experience managing enterprises across physical and
digital markets," Richard Sarnoff, chair of the publisher's
board of directors, said in a statement. “His depth of expertise
and avid love of books give us the confidence that he is the
right CEO to take Simon & Schuster forward as it begins its next
100 years.”
Greeley will be running Simon & Schuster at a time of rapid
change in the industry, with publishers, authors and agents
debating the role of AI in the future of books.
Simon & Schuster has endured numerous upheavals over the past
few years, including the death of CEO Carolyn Reidy, Karp's
immediate predecessor, and an attempted sale to Penguin Random
House that was blocked by a federal judge over antitrust
concerns. Simon & Schuster's then-corporate owners, Paramount
Global, sold the publisher to the private equity firm KKR in
2023.
"Simon & Schuster has played an enduring role in sharing and
shaping human culture through books, and I’m honored to steward
that mission for the next generation of authors and readers,”
Greeley said in a statement.
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