IPG Patrons are individuals who have been involved with the IPG for many years and who wish to continue to support our work. Some remain active in publishing, while others are now retired, or have moved on to other work—often because they have sold the publishing business they started.
Patrons have life membership of the IPG and help to fund various initiatives. They make minimum donations of £4,000 to become Patrons, and all donations are ring-fenced for special projects or purchases that are agreed with the IPG Board, rather than for ordinary expenditure. Patrons meet at least once a year, and contribute to reviews of the IPG’s activities and development plans. They also help to decide the recipients of the IPG Patrons’ Lifetime Achievement Award.
Patron membership is separate from ordinary company membership, and is subject to approval by the IPG Board. Patrons are often appointed by invitation, or by nomination from members. If you would like to discuss Patron membership, we would be delighted to hear from you.
David Blunt
David is the founder of Kenilworth Press, a specialist equestrian publisher that is now an imprint of country pursuits publisher and IPG member Quiller Publishing.
Nicholas Brealey
Nicholas is the former owner of Nicholas Brealey Publishing, which he founded in 1992. It grew an international business with London and Boston offices and two acquisitions in the US before being sold to Hachette UK in 2015. He has also worked at Macmillan Press, Allen & Unwin and Simon & Schuster London. A past Chairman of the Independent Publishers Guild, Nicholas now coaches authors and is a consultant for independent publishers.
Cath Bruzzone
Cath is the founder of award-winning children’s publisher b small publishing, publishing creative non-fiction, activity and language learning books. Cath is also a former member of the IPG board and has been a generous supporter of many new and established independent publishers over the years, including through the IPG’s mentoring programme.
Kathryn Earle
Kathryn
Earle is Head of Visual Arts Publishing at Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
She oversees the Fairchild Books imprint, and managed the acquisition
and integration of both Fairchild Books and AVA Publishing for
Bloomsbury. Prior to joining Bloomsbury, Kathryn was Managing Director
and one of the shareholders of Berg Publishers. Having joined Berg in
1993, she led its management buy-out in 2002 and sold the business to
Bloomsbury in 2008. Kathryn has particular experience with digital
products, having conceived of and launched the award-winning Berg
Fashion Library. She began her career at the Modern Language Association
of America in New York. Kathryn is an IPG Patron, has served on the
Board, including as Vice-Chair, and enthusiastically supports the
creativity, dynamism and entrepreneurship that characterize the IPG’s
membership.
Nigel Farrow
Nigel
Farrow became one of the first members of the IPG when he founded Gower
Press in 1967. The imprint still thrives as part of the Ashgate
Publishing business that Nigel sold to Taylor & Francis in 2015, by
which time Ashgate was publishing more than 850 new titles a year across
a wide range of the social sciences and humanities. Nigel's other
publishing activities and ventures have included time in the 1970s as
chairman of Xerox’s education and information companies in the UK,
Australia, Africa and the Caribbean, and from 1981 to 1999 he was
founder and chairman of Information Publications International, a
company that marketed and installed research databases in university and
national libraries. He is now chairman of Lund Humphries, a publisher
of books on the visual arts. His other interests include modern British
art, a vineyard in South West France and the development of community
schools in Zambia.
Alan Finlay (Deceased)
Alan was a Chartered Accountant who worked in various industries until his employment at general publishing house B.T.Batsford Ltd. In retirement he became Secretary of the IPG and held this position for 17 years. He enjoyed rugby union and was a Life Vice President of Kent County Rugby Football Union.
David Fulton (Deceased)
David was a longstanding member of the IPG, a former IPG Chairman, a successful educational publisher and a fantastic supporter of independent publishing.
Oliver Gadsby
Oliver
Gadsby is Chief Executive of Rowman & Littlefield International, a
new academic publisher based in London. He started his publishing career
as an editor in Germany in the 1980s; he was subsequently a sales and
marketing director in Sweden (with Liber), and later CEO of Nelson
Thornes in the UK. Oliver varied the mix for a few years by becoming
Director of Strategy & Acquisitions for Informa plc; he then
returned to publishing by becoming CEO of Continuum, which was awarded
the title of IPG Independent Publisher of the Year in 2011. Oliver led
the sale of Continuum to Bloomsbury in 2011. Oliver is non-executive
chairman of business publishing company WTiN.
Chris Hall
Alongside fellow Patron Jill Pearce, Chris was a co-founder of Donhead Publishing, a specialist in architectural books for professionals and academics. Donhead was acquired by Taylor & Francis in 2013.
Jonathan Harris (IPG President)
Jonathan
founded Learning Matters in 1999 and joined the IPG in 2000; he
successfully built Learning Matters into one of the leading publishers
in teacher training and social work before selling to SAGE in 2011.
Jonathan started work in the book industry at Foyles in 1980, and
subsequently went on to work in sales and marketing positions in
professional publishing before starting Blackstone Press with two
colleagues in 1988, and then taking up the role of Managing Director at
Letts Educational between 1993 and 1998. Since 2011 Jonathan has
undertaken a variety of consultancy projects and has mentored numerous
start-up businesses. He is the Publisher at College of Law Publishing,
and is Chair of IPG member Red Door Publishing.
Andrew Johnston
Andrew Johnston began his book trade career working at Foyles Bookshop and after almost three years decided to travel to Australia where he started as a Sales Rep for the then Hutchinson Group, eventually managing the Sydney office for what was to become Random House Australia. After twelve years Andrew returned to London to work for the Penguin Group as Special Sales Manager across all hardback and paperback imprints, then moving to Shropshire in 1990 having been appointed as Sales and Marketing Director with Airlife Publishing in Shrewsbury. He left to establish his own business Quiller Publishing in 2001 by acquiring Quiller Press and then a further four publishing companies including Kenilworth Press, previously owned by IPG Patron David Blunt. Quiller Publishing was acquired by IPG member Amberley Publishing in 2021. Andrew was Chairman of the Independent Publishers Guild from 2009-2011 and was a member of the IPG Board for eight years and credits the IPG with being an invaluable and constant source of inspiration and support throughout his independent publishing career.
Philip Kogan (Deceased)
Philip Kogan started Kogan Page in 1967 after serving as publishing director of Cornmarket Press.The first titles were to do with industrial training and transport but the list quickly developed a much broader base in management and other subjects. A global business developed, with offices in the US and India. Philip played a huge part in making the IPG what it is today, having been an early member before serving as Chair between 1975-1977. He was awarded the IPG Patrons' Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 and became an honorary IPG Patron in 2017, and was also for some years Treasurer of the PA. Philip's daughter Helen has run Kogan Page since 2006.
Sonny Leong CBE
Sonny
was a former IPG Chair and a previous Honorary President of the
Independent Publishers Guild. Sonny Leong is currently Chief Executive
of Civil Service College and Executive Chairman of Academy for
Parliamentary & Policy Studies, and Deputy Chair of Future First, a
social enterprise company, whose vision is that every state secondary
school and college should be supported by a thriving, engaged alumni
community that helps each one to do more for its students. He has more
than 30 years of publishing experience, having worked in various
academic and professional publishing houses. He founded Cavendish
Publishing and developed it to be the largest independent academic law
publisher in the UK before it was acquired by Informa PLC. He is a
former Chair of the International Division and Council member of the
Publishers Association in the UK. In 2014 he was awarded the Commander
of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s Birthday
Honours.
Edward Milford
After
working for several other academic publishers, Edward set up James
& James (Science Publishers) Ltd in 1989. The company gradually
specialised in international environmental issues and grew its types of
output to include directories, magazines, yearbooks, journals and
databases as well as books. In 2003 they acquired Earthscan. They sold
the magazines in 2006 and rebranded all the publishing as Earthscan,
winning the IPG Publisher of the Year award in 2010. In 2011 Earthscan
was acquired by Routledge. Since then Edward has worked in a
non-executive capacity for a number of other small publishers, as well
as acting as the IPG’s Development Director.
Brian Moeran
For the past 30 years Brian been writing about pottery, advertising, women’s fashion magazines, book publishing, and smell – primarily, but not exclusively, in Japan. Brian’s link with the IPG is purely altruistic: he made some money out of investment in, and later sale of, two academic publishing companies, and wanted to give something back to an industry that had indirectly paid for his daughter’s private education in the UK. He has been around long enough to be appointed professor of this and that at well-known academic institutions in England, Denmark and Hong Kong, but probably his single greatest achievement has been the fact that he once hitch-hiked from Aachen to Athens two hours faster than the train.
Geoff Nuttall
After a career in STM ad journals publishing, latterly with Cambridge University Press, Geoff took a PhD at the Courtauld Institute, where he is now an associate lecturer in Renaissance Art, his specialist area of research is art and patronage in the Tuscan city of Lucca during the fifteenth century.
Jill Pearce
Jill
Pearce worked as a commissioning editor for Chapman and Hall/Spon
before moving to Gower Publishing to develop their list of technical
books. In 1990 she set up Donhead Publishing with her husband, Chris
Hall, specialising in books (but also subsequently developing a journal)
for professionals and academics in the field of architectural
conservation and heritage. The Donhead Publishing assets were acquired
by Taylor and Francis in 2013. Jill is currently the book review editor
for the Journal of Architectural Conservation.
Tim Rix (Deceased)
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Honorary president of the IPG from 1993 to 2008, Tim Rix had roles at a number of publishers including Longman, Yale University Press, Blackwell, Frances Lincoln and Jessica Kingsley. He was Chair at Book Aid International and spent two years as president of the Publishers Association.
Martin Sheppard
Martin
Sheppard founded the distinguished independent publishing house of
Hambledon, based in Primrose Hill Village, editing and publishing over
three hundred books by leading historians. His illustrated history,
Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, was published in 2010. As a patron of
the IPG Martin believes "No individual publisher knows all the answers
in publishing, which is a complicated and tricky business. If, however,
there is an answer to a publishing question, someone in the IPG knows
it. Not only that, the person who knows it is almost always willing to
share his or her knowledge with other members. All the aspiring
publisher has to do is to define the question and ask the right IPG
member. The IPG is a wonderful organisation: friendly, efficient,
quirky, tolerant and stimulating. Its member are a remarkable set of
enterprising and intelligent people. Independent publishing can be a
lonely business. Meeting others who have made a success of it is both
enjoyable and inspiring."
John Skelton
A
former IPG Chair, John began his career in the book trade with Heffers
Bookshop, Cambridge in 1973. He joined the Open University in 1976 in
order to help develop the embryonic Open University Press, initially in
sales and marketing, and later in editorial. He was part of the
management buyout team in 1988, became managing director in 1990, and
oversaw Open UP becoming a leading social science publisher before
selling the business to McGraw-Hill in 2002. Since then he has sat on a
number of boards including those of independent publishers such as
Acumen, Flame Tree, Manchester University Press, Policy Press and Salt;
but his main preoccupations now are family, the arts, competitive
running, and armchair sport.
Jim Smith
Jim is chairman of Globe Law and Business. Previously, he was at LexisNexis, where he was on the board of the UK company. He moved from Lexis to found Tottel Publishing, which specialised in tax and law, and which was sold to Bloomsbury Publishing in 2009. Since selling Tottel, Jim has become a shareholder in several publishing companies, and combines this with a range of interests in other sectors. Jim is a former chair of the IPG and outside of work, he enjoys sailing, golf, and trying to play jazz piano.
Brian Willan
Brian spent most of his publishing career at Longman (later Pearson), ending up as Publishing Director for Humanities (Higher Education). After that he started Willan Publishing, specialising in books on criminology and criminal justice. Willan Publishing won IPG awards for Academic Publisher of the Year and International Achievement before being sold to Taylor & Francis in 2010, its 300+ books becoming part of the Routledge imprint. Brian now researches and writes about South African history.
Martin Woodhead
Martin Woodhead entered publishing in 1966 as a sales rep for Macmillan. In 1969 he joined the fledgling Gower Press as sales manager and left in 1972 to start his own business in Cambridge, Woodhead-Faulkner (Publishers) Limited, with Ian Faulkner as his partner. The business expanded steadily and was acquired by Simon & Schuster in 1987. It was around this time that Martin joined the IPG and soon realised what had been missing in his publishing life for many years. In 1989 he started his second business in Cambridge, Woodhead Publishing Limited, which also expanded steadily until it was acquired by Elsevier in August 2013. Martin served as Chair of the IPG in 1994 to 1995 and subsequently re-joined the committee in 2007. He became an IPG patron in 2014. Martin is now Chairman of Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing Limited in Cambridge, a company formed in March 2015 to specialise in agricultural science and technology.