The Department for Business & Trade in partnership with the Publishers Association are organising a trade mission to Mexico to coincide with the 2023 Guadalajara International Book Fair, one of the most important publishing events in the Spanish-speaking world.

To gain a better understand of this dynamic and complex market come and hear from three industry colleagues, with extensive knowledge of the Mexican market, discuss the range of publishing and the opportunities available for companies to grow their business there.

Chair:

Simon Littlewood
Adviser and consultant to a range of international book industry companies and government organisations. Simon has held positions in trade, academic and professional, educational and illustrated publishing in the UK for over 30 years. A member of Macmillan’s Graduate Recruitment Scheme, where he gained experience of sales, marketing and editorial management both at home and overseas, he was also a founder director of Pan Macmillan South Africa. He later took senior roles at Phaidon Press and Headline Book Publishing before becoming International Director of The Random House Group (now part of Penguin Random House) in 1997, a post he held until 2014.

Panelists:

Emma James
Emma James has over 30 years’ experience in the publishing industry and has worked as Children’s Rights Director at HarperCollins Publishers and Director of International Publishing & Licensing at Dorling Kindersley (DK).  She is now a freelance international publishing consultant.  She has in-depth knowledge and understanding of colour reference publishing for children and adults and for the distribution and sales in translation and English language to world markets. For several of her 23 years at DK, Emma was dedicated to the Spanish speaking markets of Latin America and lived and worked in Bogotá, Colombia for two years.  

Roberto Banchik
Roberto Banchik-Rothschild was born and raised in Mexico City. He worked for several years for the Mexican government as part of an advisory unit to the President of Mexico and then as a member of Mexico’s Foreign Service within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2002 he joined the publishing industry in the trade book division as CEO of Grupo Planeta in Mexico and four years later he changed companies to become CEO of Ediciones Castillo, part of Macmillan Publishers, in the Mexican curriculum textbook industry. Since 2011 he has been CEO of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial in Mexico, with responsibility for all publishing activities in Mexico, Central American and the Hispanic market in the US out of its Miami office.

David Williams
Following successful careers in the international sales departments of Oxford University Press and Penguin Books, and as a result of a deep personal engagement with the literature, languages and cultures of Latin America resulting from his studies at Oxford University, David founded IntermediaAmericana some twenty-five years ago as a sales agency to sell English-language books and related products to Latin America.

Since then, he has represented many UK, European and US publishers in the territory, in all areas of trade publishing – publishers big and small, adult and children’s, art & illustrated, travel, stationery and academic.  Children’s books are an area of special interest since they occupy part of the huge educational space of English-language teaching in Latin America. And more generally he is developing sales into non-traditional areas such as lifestyle / design / concept stores, on-line baby / children’s clothes and toy suppliers, as well as increasing sales to stationery stores and distributors.