Simon & Schuster names former Amazon executive Greg Greeley as CEO, succeeding Jonathan Karp

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NEW YORK (AP) — Upending a longtime tradition of promoting from within its ranks, Simon & Schuster has named a former Amazon.com executive, Greg Greeley, as its new CEO. The publisher announced Monday that Greeley's appointment is effective immediately.

A 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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This story corrects the year that its centennial was celebrated to 2024.