31st Jan 2005 14:00
Pearson PLC31 January 2005 31 January 2005 Board change Pearson announces that Peter Jovanovich, chief executive of Pearson Educationand a member of the board, has decided to go on long-term medical leave. Peter took a leave of absence for medical reasons last year and underwent asuccessful double lung transplant in March. He returned to work full-time inautumn 2004, but regrettably other health problems have arisen. Marjorie Scardino, chief executive, said: "Peter is a giant in the education publishing industry and has been a centralfigure in Pearson's transformation into the world's leading education company.Following such a life-changing illness, his decision to step down is easy tounderstand but hard to get used to. We will miss him terribly, but above all wewant him to have a healthy future." Peter Jovanovich joined Pearson in 1997 to run Addison Wesley Longman - at thattime the world's sixth largest education company, with sales of £554 million andprofits of £61 million. Seven years and two major acquisitions later, PearsonEducation is the world leader with sales in 2003 of £2.5 billion and profits ofmore than £300 million. Peter Jovanovich said: "For over 30 years, publishing has been my vocation, and it was difficult tospend even a short time outside the industry. I now need to step back from theresponsibility of running a $4bn international company. I'm proud to have playeda part in building a business which faces excellent prospects over the next fewyears." Pearson Education's divisional presidents will now report direct to MarjorieScardino, as they did during Peter Jovanovich's leave of absence last year. Theyare: •Will Ethridge, President, Higher Education, International and Professional Will leads Pearson's $1 billion US Higher Education business, which has grownahead of its industry for six straight years, and Pearson's technology andprofessional publishing operation. In 2003 he took additional responsibility forPearson's education operations outside the US, spanning publishing for school,college and professional students and testing and software businesses, withannual sales of approximately $1bn. •Steve Dowling, President, School Companies Steve leads Pearson's $2 billion School business. He is responsible forPearson's market-leading operations in US school publishing, testing andsoftware - which are increasingly offered as an integrated service for schoolsand districts. •George Werner, Chief financial and operations officer George is responsible for all Pearson Education's finance and operationsactivities including accounting, planning and budgeting, warehousing, logistics,customer service, facilities, technology, manufacturing and inventory.Marjorie Scardino said: "In Will, Steve and George, we are very lucky to have three highly talented andexperienced leaders. In 2004 they delivered another strong year for PearsonEducation and prepared the business for rapid growth in 2005 and beyond." For more information: Luke Swanson/ Charlotte Elston + 44 (0) 207 010 2310 Notes to editors:Peter Jovanovich, 55, began his career in publishing in 1972 as a college salesrepresentative for Macmillan. He joined Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., in 1980and ten years later was named president and CEO of HBJ (a position his father,William, held from 1954 to 1989). In 1992 he became CEO of Macmillan/McGraw-HillSchool Publishing and later president of McGraw-Hill's Educational andProfessional Group, overseeing school, college, professional and internationalpublishing. In 1997, Peter was appointed chairman and CEO of Pearson's Addison WesleyLongman. After Pearson purchased Simon & Schuster's educational and professionalbusinesses in 1998 and NCS in 2000, Peter led their successful integrations tocreate the world's largest education company. Peter is chairman of the Board ofthe Alfred Harcourt Foundation. He lives with his wife Robin, a newspapereditor, in Rye, New York. They have two sons, Nicholas and William. Peter is agraduate of Princeton University. Will Ethridge, 52, began his career in publishing in 1975 as a salesrepresentative with Little, Brown & Company. He went on to hold editorialpositions at Little, Brown until 1986, when he joined Addison Wesley aseditor-in-chief of the Higher Education Business and Economics Division. In1988, Will moved to Prentice Hall as director of marketing, and later heldexecutive level positions at Prentice Hall as director of editorial andmarketing of the College Division and president of Prentice Hall's engineering,science and math and professional technology divisions. In 1999, shortly after Pearson's purchase of Simon and Schuster EducationalPublishing, Will was appointed president of Pearson's newly formed HigherEducation and Professional Group. In this role, he oversaw the successfulintegration of Pearson's higher education and technology publishing companies.In 2003, he was given additional responsibility for Pearson Education'sinternational operations. Steve Dowling, 56, has 35 years of publishing experience. It includes 12 yearsin higher education publishing as a sales representative and editor for HarcourtBrace Jovanovich, after which he successively served as president of AcademicPress College Division, Academic Press (then, the largest US-based scientificpublisher), Holt Rinehart and Winston School Publishing, Videodiscovery, andMacmillan/McGraw-Hill School Division. He joined Pearson in 1997 as president of the Addison Wesley LongmanInternational Group. He became president of the Pearson Education InternationalGroup in 1998 when Pearson acquired Simon and Schuster's Educational andProfessional Publishing Group, doubling Pearson's international business. In2002 he became executive vice president of Pearson Education, responsible forlong-term planning and acquisitions, and in 2003 he was appointed president ofPearson School Companies. George Werner, 50, joined Pearson Education in 1978 where he held severalcorporate finance positions until becoming the business manager for the Collegedivisions in 1984. In 1992, he became the group business manager for the HigherEducation Group, and in 1998 his responsibilities were expanded to includePearson Education's professional publishing. Prior to his current appointment, he was executive vice president, generalmanager and chief operating officer of the Higher Education and ProfessionalPublishing Group, responsible for all financial, acquisition/integration andstrategic planning activities, and warehousing, customer service, technology,digital assets, production, sales and marketing support functions. 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