Tony Lucki, CEO of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), announced in a recent memo to staff that he will retire from his position on April 15. Lucki, who will maintain his association with HMH as chairman of the company, will be succeeded by Barry O’Callaghan, the current chair of HMH’s Dublin-based parent corporation, Education Media & Publishing Group (EMPG).
The move comes three weeks after EMPG decided against selling HMH, which publishes poetry and fiction by authors including Charles Simic, Margaret Atwood, and Jonathan Safran Foer, children’s classics such as the Curious George books, and literature for young adult readers. The publisher also recently acquired two previously unpublished books by J. R. R. Tolkien. EMPG, which was facing debt in the billions earlier this year but has established some breathing room with budgetary restructuring, took HMH off the block in March after bids to buy the company came in lower than anticipated.
According to the Wall Street Journal, O’Callaghan will bring “passionate salesmanship on behalf of educational publishing” to HMH, which is also a major publisher of grade school textbooks. HMH, like other educational publishers, has recently seen a decrease in textbook sales as school districts face budget cuts, the Boston Globe reported last month. The publisher may see that situation change, however, as funds from the federal stimulus package flow to education authorities willing to spend on materials.
“We are on sound operational and financial footing and have great potential to grow our trusted brands and businesses,” Lucki wrote in his internal memo, quoted in the Wall Street Journal. Lucki went on to commend O’Callaghan as a “true visionary,” Yahoo Finance UK reported, calling him a leader who would guide the company “into an even greater future.”
