BIC announces appointment of Ruth Jones, Director Global Sales, Digital Services at Ingram Content Group as Chair of its new Board of Directors.
Press Release
Monday 22nd November 2021 London, UK
Book Industry Communication (BIC) today announced the appointment of Ruth Jones, Director Global Sales, Digital Services at Ingram Content Group as Chair of its newly formed Board of Directors. The new board is one of a number of changes at BIC following an extensive governance review which focussed on re-shaping BIC in order to create an agile, responsive organisation that reflects the diversity of the current book industry and delivers a greater sense of ownership amongst the BIC membership. It replaces both the Executive and Operational boards which have now disbanded and means BIC members will have a greater say in BIC’s strategy and schedule of work as they will now be eligible to nominate a suitable representative from within their own organisations for election to the new Board of Directors. Speaking of her recent appointment Ruth Jones said
“I am delighted to become Chair of the BIC Board as we transition to a new structure. The book supply chain needs to develop best practices to respond to new business and environmental challenges. It’s exciting to be a part of BIC’s focus on addressing real problems and affecting change though collaboration with its members”
The directors of the new board are as follows:
- Graham Bell, Executive Director, EDItEUR
- Simon Ellison, Merchandising Director – High Street, WHSmith
- Gareth Jarrett, Director of Book Publishing Services, Taylor and Francis
- Natalie Jones, Head of Programmes, CILIP
- Ruth Jones, (Chair), Director Global Sales, Digital Services, Ingram Content Group
- Dr Cordelia Rogerson, Head of Collection Care and Metadata Management, The British Library
- Fraser Tanner, Managing Director, Batch Ltd and a Director of the Booksellers Association Group Ltd
- Karina Urquhart, Executive Director, Book Industry Communication Ltd (BIC)
- Jon Windus, Head of Product Leadership, Nielsen Book
Find out more about each of them here.
Other governance changes at BIC include assigning greater responsibility and ownership to its 5 strategic committees: i) Green Supply Chain, ii) Digital, iii) Metadata, iv) Physical and v) Libraries and the introduction of different working practices, particularly at project level. All 5 committees will now report into the new board directly, and will control their own budgets which will create further efficiencies with regards to the execution of BIC’s schedule of work.
Considering the governance changes, Karina Urquhart, BIC’s Executive Director, observed:
“Given the importance of the supply chain to the book industry, and especially in these difficult times, it is vital that we give our members a greater voice in addressing the issues that can improve the efficiency of their supply chains for both business and environmental reasons. We have created the new governance structure to reflect this: Our members will now have greater influence in shaping BIC’s ongoing work and future strategic direction, which in turn impacts on the wider book industry. I am delighted to have the new structure and board in place, and that Ruth has agreed to accept the position of Chair of the new Board. I look forward to working with her and the rest of the directors over the months and years to come as we move BIC into a new era.”
With representatives currently from 8 member organisations, there is the option to appoint further directors to the Board via elections in 2022 on a date to be advised.
End of press release
About BIC:
BIC is a not-for-profit members organisation working at the heart of the UK book industry to promote supply chain efficiency in all sectors of the book world through e-commerce, best practice, training, events, and the application of standards. BIC helps organisations become more efficient, save money, become less wasteful and ultimately greener. At the cornerstone of the book industry, BIC holds a unique position of trust, facilitating UK and international industry-wide collaboration to reach agreement on dependable standards and best practice in the supply chain.
Find out more at www.bic.org.uk and follow via @bic1uk
Note to editors: more information via info@bic.org.uk.