January 8, 2019

Spring 2019: Meet the New Faculty

By Center for Publishing Staff

As we ring in the new year, we welcome new members of the MS in Publishing:Digital and Print Media faculty for the Spring 2019 semester. This semester we’re excited to have experts from The New York Times, Hachette Book Group, Penguin Random House, and WIRED leading our classes. Read on for more on these esteemed professionals, including some fun facts about them (over a hundred weddings, thousands of records, NYU alumni and more).

John Clinton headshot

John Clinton (The Role of Video in Publishing) is Vice President and Director of Digital Video for Penguin Random House, where he runs corporate digital video strategy for the company,; manages two digital studios, video workflow, the in-house production/promotion team, and third party resources; and has worked with 1,000+ Penguin Random House authors to create more than 2,000 videos for over 10 million views since the launch of the video studios. He was previously Senior Director of Digital Video and Director of Consumer Events at Penguin Random House, as well has having held positions at Bertelsmann, Inc., Apple, Inc., MTV Networks, and Fuse Networks. John earned his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

John has been to 183 weddings – he worked for a wedding band in NYC for many years leading the stage crew and playing piano. One piece of advice from that experience: ALL speeches should have a hard limit of 2 minutes.


Issie Lapowsky headshot

Issie Lapowsky (Digital Management Strategies: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google) is Senior Writer for WIRED at Condé Nast, where she writes daily stories on the intersection of politics, national affairs, and technology, with core coverage areas including: social platforms and their impact on democracy, civic technology, technology and criminal justice reform, immigration reform, and the Trump administration; and writes regular feature-length stories for WIRED.com. Previously she was a staff writer at WIRED and a reporter, senior reporter, and staff writer at Inc. magazine and Inc.com. She also held positions at New York Daily News and The Brooklyn Rail. Issie earned her degree from New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

In high school, Issie won a raffle to appear in an episode of The OC. It’s still her favorite episode.


Mike Puretz headshot

Mike Puretz (Workshop in Video Editing) is Senior Manager for Post Production at The New York Times, where he manages end-to-end video workflows; supervises video roles, designers, archival researchers, text editors, equipment managers and rights managers; maintains all video edit tools and respective vendor relationships; heads product ownership, support and training for video CMS/publishing tools; manages templates, styles and ongoing design projects; liaises with site product and player development teams; and recruits video staff and freelancers. He has also been a Video Compression Manager for AOL Studios/Huffington Post; a Producer/Label Operative for Glow-in-the-Dark Records; and an Adjunct Professor for The New School. Mike earned his degree from George Washington University.

Mike is an avid record collector, with a couple thousand LPs on the shelf.


Keith Riegert headshot

Keith Riegert (Web Analytics) is Marketing Analytics Manager at Hachette Book Group USA, where he oversees data-driven marketing strategy for 20 publishing imprints; runs social media and digital marketing planning, listening, and analytics across the entire publishing group; and built a 26,000-product, ten-year database combining customer metrics and sales information to deliver marketing insight. He was previously Acquisitions Editor, Senior Acquisitions Editor and New York Office Manager, and Director of Analytics and Market Research at Ulysses Press, as well as having been Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kingfisher Press. Keith is also the author of several books, including Goodnight Dorm Room; The Wright Brothers Photographs; Power Smoothies; The Manual; Professor Jonathan T. Buck’s Mysterious Airship Notebook; Going Ninja; and When Ninjas Attack. He received his M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

While traveling, Keith has experienced heart-stopping close calls with two great white sharks, a coral snake, an African lion, and a malicious possum.


Mark Tavani headshot

Mark Tavani (Book Acquisition and Editing) is Vice President and Executive Editor of G. P. Putnam’s Sons at Penguin Random House, where he acquires manuscripts for publication; works closely with authors to edit and prepare manuscripts for publication; collaborates with sales and publicity teams to promote titles; has edited numerous New York Times bestsellers and award winners; assumed a key role in a joint venture between Ballantine Bantam Dell and ESPN, Inc.; and co-founded Mortalis, a suspense fiction imprint, and XYZ, an imprint for Gen X readers. He was previously Executive Editor and Editorial Director of Fiction at Ballantine Bantam Dell, and has appeared at ThrillerFest, NYU’s The Word Lover’s Publishing Panel, University of Pittsburgh’s Talk on Publishing and Internship Panel, Virginia Festival of the Book, and the Backspace Conference. Mark received his degree from The University of Pittsburgh.

Once upon a time, Mark played at a handful of New York City venues with a charmingly amateurish band named after a hero of the American revolution.


Campbell Wharton headshot

Campbell Wharton (Introduction to Book Publishing) is Vice President and Deputy Publisher of Crown Publishing at Penguin Random House. There he spearheads acquisition, marketing and publicity strategy for six imprints: Currency, Forum, Convergent, Image, Waterbrook and Multnomah. He has launched multiple New York Times bestsellers, including books by Carol Burnett, Daymond John, Scott Harrison, Peter Thiel, Tim Tebow, Charles Krauthammer, Max Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, Mindy Kaling, Charles Koch, and others. Campbell was previously Director of Publicity and Agent Director at the Random House Speakers Bureau, and received his degree from the University of New South Wales.

Campbell also sings baritone in a choir each week, and has competed in four Olympic distance triathlons.


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