Category: IPA Presidents Biographies

Andrew H. Neilly Jr joined John Wiley & Sons upon his graduation in 1947. Starting out as a traveler, he became an assistant sales manager, then manager of college sales before holding positions in advertising and marketing. In 1971 Andrew H. Neilly became Executive Vice President proceeding to become President, Chief Operating Officer and finally, in 1979, Chief Executive Officer—a post he held until 1988. Mr Neilly also served as chairman of the Association of American Publishers and was the first chairman of the Book Industry Study Group.

Johan Somerwil (1926–2009) joined Meulenhoff in 1943 later becoming Vice President and then President in 1971. He was also a board member of Kluwer and then Wolters Kluwer as well as being involved in the Comité van Importeurs van Boeken en Tijdschriften (CIBT, committee of book and magazine importers), the Uitgevers Distributie Centrum (UDC, publishers’ distribution centre) and the Uitgevers Verkoop Maatschappij (UVEMA, publishers’ vending company).

Son of former IPA President, Santiago Salvat Espasa, Manuel Salvat Dalmau joined the family business, Editorial Salvat, in the late 1940s, becoming manager. The company specialised in dictionaries and medical works and later encyclopedias. The Editorial Salvat was also a pioneer in incorporating CDs and cassettes. In the late 1980s the Salvat Group was purchased by the French multinational Hachette.   More information: Wikipedia

Per A. Sjögren was a Swedish publisher who started his career for Albert Bonniers Förlag before becoming the CEO of AB P.A. Sjögren in 1955. He joined AB Rabén & Sjögren bokförlag in 1969, where he rose to CEO (1970–1982) before becoming a partner and chairman of the board of Askelin & Hägglund Förlag AB 1983–1987.   He was chairman of the Swedish Publishers’ Association 1980–1984 and later chairman of the Association for Book Crafts among many other positions.   More information: Wikipedia Photo rights: Getty images

John Boon took over the publishing house Mills & Boon, co–founded by his father, Charles, which specialized in romantic fiction. He served as President of both the Publishers’ Association and the International Publishers’ Association, as chairman of the publishers’ advisory panel of the British Council, and as president of the Society of Bookmen and director of Book Tokens.   More information: Herald Scotland

Ernest Lefebvre’s training to work in publishing took him from the Netherlands to Germany, Austria and France. He was a director of H D Tjeenk Willink & Zoon in Haarlem from 1938 and in 1952 became President of the Royal Dutch Publishers Union (Koninklijke Nederlandsche Uitgeversbond), the predecessor of today’s Mediafederatie.   More information: Who’s Who in Publishing 1956

Storer Boardman Lunt joined W.W. Norton and Company as a sales manager in 1930. After founder William Warder Norton’s death in 1945, Norton became employee–owned with Lunt the first president and later chairman of the board. Lunt’s obituary in the New York Times noted the exceptionally strong relationships he built with his authors. Lunt was a president of the American Book Publishers Council and guided its amalgamation with the Association of American Publishers.   More information: Modernist Archives

Son of publisher Manuel Salvat Xivixell, Santiago Salvat Espasa’s entry into publishing was a two–year trip around the America prepared by his older brother, Pau Salvat i Espasa, then in charge of the family publishing house. . When Pau Salvat i Espasa died in 1923 he took over Editorial Salvat. During his career he presided over the Spanish Publishers Guild, the Institut Català de les Arts del Llibre and the Book Chamber of Barcelona.   More information: Wikipedia

Fritz Ross started his career as junior partner at Ullstein AG in Berlin until 1934 (when the business, owned by the Jewish Ullstein family, was seized by the authorities and in 1937 renamed Deutscher Verlag.  Ross founded an Ullstein publishing house in Vienna with his wife Hilda (née Ullstein) in May 1945, which brought out its own production and was merged with the Berlin house in 1954 with Ross becoming a member of the oversight board. He held the position of President of the Austrian Association of Booksellers.   More information: Wikipedia and BuchMarkt

From the well–known Milan family of publishers, booksellers and printers that dates back to the 18th Century, Antonio Vallardi took part in the World Congress of Libraries and Bibliography in 1929 was a member of the Italian Libraries Association from 1931 until at least 1937 and remained involved in Lombardy regional library Committee until 1964. He became President of the Italian Publishers Association in 1946, a position he held for ten years.   More information: Wikipedia AIB