The senior team

Ian Hudson is Managing Director of Bloomsbury Consumer Publishing and an Executive Director.

Ian Hudson joined Bloomsbury in January 2021 as Managing Director of the Consumer Division, which includes the Adult, Children’s and Sarah J. Maas sub-divisions. Ian is a hugely experienced publishing leader and his focus is on developing and executing new strategies to profitably grow the Consumer Division.

Prior to joining Bloomsbury, Ian was a member of the Supervisory Board of global media group Bertelsmann, a member of the Global Executive Committee of Penguin Random House and Global CEO of Dorling Kindersley Publishing,  

Ian began his career at magazine publisher Marshall Cavendish, subsequently joining Random House in 1992 where he went on to hold the role of Group Commercial Director before becoming Managing Director of Random House Children’s Books. With the merger of Random House and Transworld in 1998, Ian became Group Managing Director and Chairman of TBS Distribution and joined the Random House Global Board. He was a member of the Bertelsmann team, which negotiated the Penguin Random House merger in 2012/2013. Post-merger, he sat on the Global Executive Committee of Penguin Random House and was appointed to the roles of CEO of Penguin Random House International and Deputy CEO of Penguin Random House UK. Once the global integration of the two companies was completed, Ian was appointed Global CEO of Dorling Kindersley.

Ian is a former President of the UK Publishers Association and currently a Non-Executive Director of Which?

Jenny Ridout is Managing Director of Bloomsbury’s Academic, Professional, and Specialist Publishing which includes Bloomsbury Digital Resources. She is executive group sponsor for Artificial Intelligence and a member of the Publishers Association AI Taskforce. She is also a Board Trustee for Yale University Press London.

Jenny joined Bloomsbury in 2004. Prior to her current role, Jenny had global responsibility as Global Head of Bloomsbury’s Academic publishing, where she oversaw the integration of several acquisitions. She has many years of experience in Digital Resource publishing, being responsible for the creation and rapid growth of Drama Online as Project Director, for which she won the Futurebook Digital Achiever industry award. Jenny was previously the Editorial Director for the Methuen Drama and Arden Shakespeare lists.

She started her career in publishing at Elsevier (RELX), where she was the global Publishing Director for the specialist trade and professional media imprint, Focal Press.

Kathleen Farrar is Managing Director of Group Sales and Marketing. Kathleen joined Bloomsbury in December 1998 as International Sales Manager. She began her publishing career working in the leading independent bookstores in Sydney, Australia before moving to Allen & Unwin as Sales & Promotions Manager. She has held a number of senior sales and marketing roles including Managing Director of Bloomsbury Australia based in Sydney. In January 2013 she returned to the UK to take up the position of Group Sales and Marketing Director, responsible for global sales and marketing for the four Bloomsbury divisions, across print and digital.

Karl Burnett is Group Director of People and Engagement.  The role combines all the disciplines of People, DE&I, Sustainability and Communications ensuring the company has a focused strategy both internally and externally.

Karl brings over 20 years of experience in people leadership from the media and TV industry. Prior to joining Bloomsbury, Karl was Senior Vice President of Human Resources at TV Broadcaster, A+E Networks EMEA. During his eight years the company won the media journal Broadcast’s award for Best Places to Work in TV and in 2022, the company achieved the prestigious accolade of Great Place to Work certification. Before joining A+E Networks EMEA, he was HR Director of BBC News and Radio, heading a team of 60 professionals responsible for 9,500 journalists and radio producers around the world.  Prior to that, Burnett held senior HR roles at Nickelodeon, Channel 4 Television and Marks and Spencer.

Stephen Esson is Group Production Director.  Stephen is passionate about books having produced them for 42 years. He delights in the operational and commercial challenges of doing so, domestically and globally, against a backdrop of constant technological change and development.

Stephen was Group Publishing Operations Director and Executive Committee member of Penguin Random House UK, an organisation that he was with, in its various forms, for 37 years until his retirement in March 2023. He was responsible for a divisionally focussed central operational department of 90+ encompassing print & ebook production and inventory management, and oversaw a global supply chain with a £100m p/a budget. He was also production advisor and negotiator for the PRH companies in India, Australia and South Africa. 

Over the years, Stephen initiated the first print-on-demand (POD) programme for consumer publishing, introduced ‘just-in-time’ printing to reduce inventory and stock write-offs, headed the development of the Biblio publishing management system which is now the most used software in the industry, successfully influenced paper suppliers and printers to manufacture 1m books free for World Book Day, and led Random House to become the first publishing house to gain Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certification.

Happily lured out of retirement, to become Group Production Director in 2024 and member of the Executive Committee on the 1st March 2025 for a new and unexpected opportunity to make a difference in a remarkable and entrepreneurial global company successfully straddling both consumer and academic publishing.

Cristina Cappelluto is Managing Director of Bloomsbury Australia and joined Bloomsbury in March 2022. Cristina has worked in the Australian industry for over 25 years, with experience in marketing and publishing roles across a number of different genres. Cristina has successfully led the ANZ sales and marketing strategies for both contemporary and classic brands and, prior to joining Bloomsbury, was Publishing Director for HarperCollins Children’s Books, Australia.

Rahul Srivastava joined Bloomsbury Publishing India in February 2025. He brings 30 years of experience across the Indian publishing industry including Simon & Schuster Publishers, Random House, Penguin Books, and India Book House. Rahul joined Bloomsbury from Simon & Schuster, where he has been the Managing Director, South Asia for the past 13 years.  

Sabrina McCarthy is President of Bloomsbury US and also serves on the Bloomsbury’s global Executive Committee..

Sabrina brings a wealth of experience across trade and academic publishing. Prior to joining Bloomsbury in April 2024, Sabrina was Vice President and General Manager at Ingram Publisher Services., where she oversaw six distribution brands as well as the domestic, international print and digital sales teams, and the business operations team. She led the strategy for all areas of business from operational improvement to creation of new services. During her time eight years at Ingram Publisher Services, Sabrina managed and developed an exceptional team of Vice Presidents and Directors, responsible for each line of business with a supportive team culture across 150+ employees.

Before working at Ingram, Sabrina worked for nineteen years at Perseus Books Group starting out in publicity then working in sales, marketing and business development before leading their client services business beginning in 2006. She was hired as the fifth employee and stayed until Perseus was sold in 2016.