Louise Stark
Louise Stark is the CEO for Hachette ANZ, a subsidiary of Hachette Livre. She also serves on the board of the Australian Publishers’ Association and has served on the board of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
Louise has 20 years in executive roles and has worked for companies including Ryland Peters & Small, Faber & Faber and Hodder & Stoughton in London and Google Play, Bloomsbury and Hachette in Sydney.
Louise is currently reading Good People by Patmeena Sabit, publishing early 2026, enjoying the multiple perspectives and lack of obvious winners and losers in the narrative.
“(after being made redundant), I learned to be more outward looking, increased my networking, and it certainly did a lot for my self-awareness.”
Can you give us a brief outline of your career so far?
Growing up in Queensland, Australia in the 70s and 80s, the idea of publishing (or even writing) wasn’t an obvious career to me, so I studied science at university before heading to London like lots of other young people at the time. In my first publishing roles at Marshall Cavendish and Ryland Peters & Small, I did anything that was asked of me: sales, marketing, publicity, rights, export – everything! Small publishers are hungry and working in that environment without a lot of money or restraints, you just have to try everything. I’ve always really valued the grounding those roles gave me, but it wasn’t until I ended up at Faber & Faber that I found where my heart really lay: in the fiction and narrative non-fiction space. From Faber, I went to Hodder and after 11 dark winters in London, I came home to take up a role to become Hodder’s Sales & Marketing Director in the Australian business.
I was made redundant in 2011 which was really tough at the time but actually quite transformative. I learned to be more outward looking, increased my networking, and it certainly did a lot for my self-awareness. I worked outside of Hachette after that until Matt Richell, then CEO of Hachette, asked me to come back as Sales & Product Director for the wider business. I did that until he sadly passed away in 2014 and then moved up to run the company with Justin Ratcliffe before becoming CEO of Hachette Australia and New Zealand, as well as ADS, our warehouse in Tuggerah, in 2018.
What does the role of CEO entail, both as a leader of the business and of people?
Being a generalist is the nature of the job. I have an executive team who are all experts, and I rely on them to tell me what’s going on and then help them clear the way when they run into trouble. There’s a place for everyone and their strengths. Understanding each perspective and their challenges is key.
As people move up the leadership chain, one of the most difficult challenges is expecting people who are subject matter experts to also be really good at managing people - there’s an expectation that because you’re really good at this one thing, you can now run a team of other people who are also good at it. There needs to be more space to progress for brilliant subject matter experts who don’t have to manage a team but at the same time we need to better support people who just love managing people and are great at it. We’re trying to get better at helping people progress based on their skills.
"Over here (in Australia), everyone’s really laid back whereas the UK is much more ‘quick, quick, quick, next big thing, next big thing’."
You’ve worked across the UK and Australia - what are the main differences you’ve noticed?
One of the main things is the difference in pace. Over here, everyone’s really laid back whereas the UK is much more ‘quick, quick, quick, next big thing, next big thing’. The UK business is also more about acquiring books whereas over here, 80% of our turnover comes from international. That removes us from interfacing with authors at the same level but comes with different pressures - we’re about 10% of the size in terms of people but we still have to do everything the UK teams do (finance, IT, marketing etc) as well as manage the international and local publishing.
Our Australian business is incredibly well organised because we can’t afford not to be. We might be looking at thousands of books a year, and without unbelievable processes in place, we can’t surface them. I love working with UK houses because everyone does things a little bit differently, but we have to be more consistent with our approach. Making sure priorities are really clear and then knowing how to communicate and execute on plan effectively is something that UK businesses could learn from us. We’re far away and in a completely different time zone so it can often feel like we’re working hard to keep our British counterparts informed - that’s not just a challenge at Hachette but more broadly for the Australian industry. The real challenge is to keep some flexibility for the books that surprise you. Our processes mean we can publish every book, international and local, with enough in our marketing and publicity support to ensure they can be discovered. But we also have to have the capacity to go, ‘Oh my giddy aunt, there’s something over here really starting to bubble - let’s move,’ and throw our processes out the window. That marriage of keeping everything steady and being able to jump when we need to is what makes it fun, isn’t it?
“While it’s a lot better than it was, there is always more employers can do around unequal distributions of power in the workplace. ”
What changes have you seen since the beginning of your career in publishing?
When I joined publishing in London, there was no Amazon and certainly no Facebook. We were the tastemakers and had significant power to influence a much bigger market - on my commute, people would be reading either a book or a newspaper. Now you get on a train and four or five people may be reading a book but everyone else is on their phones. Some might be consuming a book in a non-physical format, but there are just fewer readers than when I started out.
But then something like BookTok comes along, which some people call the democratisation of publishing because readers are deciding what to read next. That’s shifted a bit already, because now there are established influencers, so it’s less democratic than it once was, but still really exciting. Social media has enabled us to communicate really effectively and in a very targeted way with readers.
What we do as publishers remains the same: connecting a book or an author with a reader. We just have to navigate new ways of doing this all the time. But the essence, that storytelling is at the core of everything we do, is unchanged.
Workplace culture has definitely changed for the better and is much more inclusive. Seeing more women in leadership in publishing is just incredible. I was talking about this with Mel Winder, Managing Director of Hachette New Zealand. She’s a Kiwi, I’m Australian, we both worked in London and we were both somewhat outside the class-based culture that defined parts of UK publishing at the time. The industry has done a lot of work with organisations like Creative Access and it is making a change - when I go to London now, I hear accents from all over the country and we’re seeing more diverse hiring practices rather than relying on personal networks.
It’s also safer. Women of my generation, especially publicists, used to put up with dreadful stuff and were expected to just get on with it. I’m very excited about the new Australian law around sexual harassment, which makes it the employer’s responsibility to protect staff. It’s a shift from being reactive to proactive and we actually have to write a prevention plan as part of this. We hope to work across the Australian industry to share knowledge and come up with a concrete framework that allows our staff to have difficult conversations safely when they need to.
While it’s a lot better than it was, there is always more employers can do around unequal distributions of power in the workplace. How do we make sure everyone is aware of their responsibilities regardless of the power disparity to prevent issues like bullying? How do we keep everyone of all ages interested, motivated and excited about the work they do? There are all sorts of different ways to support people and those are interesting conversations that we still need to have.
"While COVID showed us that we can keep working with good productivity at home, I do still think social cohesion and social connection at work are really important.”
Last year, the Australian government brought in ‘The Right to Disconnect’, which aimed to promote better work-life balance and improved employee wellbeing. In the past year, have you noticed any major changes in working patterns and if not, what would you like to foster instead?
When I started my career, I didn’t have a laptop. I had a phone, but when I went home, I was then done for the day. The ease of virtual meetings and the invention of smartphones changed this. Employees became completely accessible, and it did get out of hand. This was especially apparent with COVID, because there was no catching the train or stepping away from the laptop anymore and people felt they needed to be on all the time.
Our ‘Right to Disconnect’ policy gave people permission to say: ‘I’m not working tonight; my laptop is closed.’ I like to think it has improved things but then here I am talking to you at 5pm after my working hours. The reality is that it can’t work for a multinational in quite the same way, so we have to be flexible. While COVID showed us that we can keep working with good productivity at home, I do still think social cohesion and social connection at work are really important. This is especially essential for young people who don’t learn as easily when they can’t easily just pick up on what’s going on around them. It’s this flexibility, for example, which means I can pick up my daughter from school occasionally and if that means I work late the next day, that’s fine by me.
As for autonomy, it’s about giving oneself permission to prioritise. What actually needs to be done today? If it’s not urgent, don’t do it now. Go home, see your family and switch off. It’s hard, but it comes down to being clear on priorities and having support from your line manager if you’re struggling to find balance. For me, that balance looks like blocking time out on a Friday when I’m at home to sit down and get ‘big thinking’ projects done with my notifications turned off. Overall, it’s important to remember that we all work better when we’re well rested and when we’ve had time with family and friends.
"Women often don’t want to be thought of as ‘pushy’ but we need to be braver… I would love to see women having the confidence to apply for these roles, even where they may not think they are qualified.”
You’re a member of Chief Executive Women, who recently called for the government to take action on six policy priorities. One of these is to build the pipeline for women’s advancement in male-dominated industries - but publishing is not a stereotypically male-dominated industry, especially not at a more junior level. What can be done to create more gender-balanced leadership boards?
On the most fundamental level, a flexible parental leave policy has meant that a person can return on a part-time basis and keep their job. This is key because it’s one of the main times we lose talent, especially women, along the pipeline. I found it really hard to come back to work full-time after my parental leave so I’m glad that’s changed.
However, gender balance across all levels needs attention. We’re not going to tell the right stories if we’re all white, middle-class women of a certain age. We need more men in publishing, particularly at junior level. We’ve got them in senior roles, but we need diversity of gender, thought, ideas, lived experience AND we need to give women confidence that they can pursue the big jobs and help them figure out how.
It’s also important to give oneself permission to think about big possibilities. I do a lot of mentoring, and I don’t think people allow themselves to think they can do those big jobs. Sadly, I think that’s often a female trait. They don’t know how to get there, or they talk themselves out of it.
Personally, I never really thought I could run a company! I remember someone retiring and speculating about who was going to get the job. A woman senior to me said, ‘What about you?’ and I said, ‘Not me. No, no, no.’ Honestly, it hadn’t occurred to me at all and even if it had, I would never have pursued it. That embarrassment about pursuing what we want is still a substantial barrier. Women often don’t want to be thought of as ‘pushy’ but we need to be braver. We’ve all got stories, tales of a man applying for a Sales Director role while still at university etc, and I think that’s great (although a somewhat extreme example)! – I would love to see women having the confidence to apply for these roles, even where they may not think they are qualified.
At the same time, it’s important to take accountability for your own career, and back up your goals and vision with self-awareness and self-belief. You can reach out for support, but the drive to take the next step has to come from you. If you understand what makes you tick, then there are no weaknesses, only strengths. Think about what you want to do and what’s in your power to make it happen. That self-awareness removes barriers to progression, because you can say, ‘This is what I love doing, and this is where I want to head.’ Be open with your line manager and say, “In five years, I’d like to be X,” and work with them on how to get there. That’s where organisations come in: providing the structure and frameworks to support their employee pathways and their ambitions.
"By working with First Nations storytellers in a way that honours their stories and processes, we’ll all gain a deeper understanding of the world we live in.”
Tell us a little bit about your work with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) - what are the highlights of your work there?
The ILF is a charitable not-for-profit that empowers Communities in remote Australia to create their own books. Strong educational outcomes have traditionally been difficult to achieve in remote communities, but the most successful ones are those that embrace their own culture, language, and storytelling. Community-led publishing means the Community writes and illustrates their own stories - the editing work by the ILF is very light. ILF makes sure the book is as beautiful as the community wants it to be and then gifts it back so children can learn their own stories in their own language. In total, the ILF have published books in over 30 languages, bringing some of the 230 First Nations languages back to life. It’s really no surprise that, if you can hold your head up high in your own Country, the educational and life outcomes are better.
My experience being on their board was life changing because it was a completely new way of looking at publishing. As Nardi Simpson, one of our First Nations storytellers, said to me: ‘We’ve been telling stories for 60,000 years. Publishing is a new storytelling tool for us so we need to learn from you, but you also need to learn from us.’
Our primary focus at Hachette is to create a safe pipeline for First Nations creators and people interested in publishing as a career - editors, marketers, publicists etc. This also means, for those of us who are not First Nations, building a deep understanding and respect for First Nations cultures, and being willing to adapt our practices where needed. For example, First Nations creators may approach storytelling in distinct ways that we need to honour. Collective voice is something that’s relatively new to many of us, as it differs from the more individualised Western approach to storytelling. For example, when a Wangal storyteller shares a story, it represents the collective voice of the Wangal people and their Country. It’s important to remember that the Wangal people have different stories to the Gadigal people, and those differences need to be respected too. Respecting First Nations storytellers, developing the expertise to support them, and publishing their work boldly so it reaches as many readers as possible, is vital. The second part of our job is to get those books into as many hands as possible. American and Canadian publishers have been early leaders in this space By working with First Nations storytellers in a way that honours their stories and processes, we’ll all gain a deeper understanding of the world we live in. And as publishers, we’ll be stronger for it, not just for First Nations storytellers, but for all storytellers.
It ultimately boils down to how comfortable we are with the discomfort in our history, and this is something I think many countries still find hard to contend with. We have to embrace that Australia is a country still reckoning with the deep harm caused by the oppression of First Nations people who have never been properly recognised. I campaigned Yes for the Voice referendum, and I’m still heartbroken that it didn’t go through. One of the things I really came to understand through my work with ILF is that it’s not up to any of us to tell First Nations people what they need or what’s good for them. That kind of thinking is simply unacceptable, frankly, and it’s why Australian government policy has failed for over 200 years. First Nations people know what’s best for their communities and our role is to listen. One of the interesting things about very successful First Nations organisations like ILF is their independence. They choose not to accept government funding so they can remain free from shifting government policy and stay focused on what Communities want to support their literacy journeys. In doing so, they’ve allowed themselves to stay deeply relevant and responsive to the needs of First Nations communities - and it absolutely works. In 2024, the ILF were awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, raising their profile in Australia and around the world. Now they’re being asked to advise other First Nations Community-led publishing houses in countries such as Canada, Sweden and Norway, which is well-deserved recognition of how they’ve empowered Communities to tell their own stories in their own languages.
”Making time for the next generation is incredibly important - I learn more from the people I mentor than I think they learn from me!”
Tell us about a woman in publishing who inspires you.
I don’t even know where to start - I know you asked for one but I just can’t pick so I’ll share some names of brilliant women I’ve worked with and what they’ve taught me. That’s how you keep going - people inspire you because they illustrate the qualities that you want to cultivate in yourself too.
Lucy Hale, who’s now at Pan Macmillan, taught me that ambition wasn’t a dirty word. Lisa Highton, who is back in the UK now, has always been an extraordinary champion of writing, with a massively commercial eye. Sue Fletcher, also at Hodder, had a phenomenal way of acquiring books with such cleverness. Margie Seale, formerly the managing director of Random House Australia, is still proactively supporting people in the industry even though she’s been out for several years. Jane Curry, who used to be at Pan Macmillan Australia but now runs a small press, is so inspiring, especially with what she’s done to keep her business sustainable and successful. Carrie Bloxson, who leads DEI at Hachette Book Group US is so impressive and so cool - when I first met her, I thought, ‘Oh, when I’m grown up, I’m going to be like you.’ Because of when I came up in my career, I do just want to take a moment to acknowledge that men should be part of the solution to creating pathways for women to get to the top and for me, that was David Peters, Martin Neild, Jamie Hodder-Williams, Malcolm Edwards and Richard Kitson - they gave me that confidence to progress.
Making time for the next generation is incredibly important - I learn more from the people I mentor than I think they learn from me! Pipelines are created when you get somewhere and then reach down to pull the next generation up with you.
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