ABA Announces Staff Reorganization

The American Booksellers Association announced today that it has begun the process of a staff reorganization. Regarding the changes, ABA Chief Executive Officer Oren Teicher said, "I was charged by the association's Board of Directors to make ABA both more efficient and better prepared to meet the new and myriad challenges facing independent booksellers. This reorganization, which is the result of many months of analysis and investigation, is the first step in that process."

In the reorganization, several new senior staff positions were announced:

• Meg Smith has been named Membership and Marketing Officer. This position will head a newly created membership and marketing department that will focus on better delivering services to members, as well as increasing the association's membership rolls. Part of Smith's charge will be to create a team of member relationship managers to help booksellers get the maximum benefit from ABA.

• Dan Cullen has been named Content Officer to head a newly created content department. This effort will oversee the creation of all association content, including education, relevant trade and business-related news, and other member content. Cullen will also be helping direct ABA's advocacy and public policy initiatives.

• Mark Nichols has been named Industry Relations Officer. In this role, he will expand his portfolio of liaising with key publishing industry personnel to also represent ABA to all outside partners and industry stakeholders, including vendors, trade associations, and others.

• Jill Perlstein has been named Meetings and Planning Officer, a newly created officer-level position to oversee all meeting and event logistics, including such high-profile events as the Winter Institute and ABA's participation in BookExpo America.

Len Vlahos will continue serving as ABA's Chief Operating Officer, and Eleanor Chang will be continuing in her role as ABA Chief Financial Officer.

In addition to these new positions, ABA also announced that five employees were let go in the reorganization. "It's never easy to say goodbye to hard-working, loyal colleagues, but we believe that these changes will allow us to organize ABA in a more efficient way to better utilize the association's resources and to achieve the ends adopted by the Board," said Teicher, "We hope and believe we've been successful in doing that."

Details on other key ABA positions will be announced in the coming weeks.