Meet the New Summer 2021 Faculty!

Alison Rich (From Idea to Empire: New Business Development) is Senior Vice President, Author Development, at Penguin Random House where she works cross-divisionally to support brand development for the company's roster of creators and storytellers. She spent the first two decades of her career at Penguin Random House as a publicity executive developing and customizing strategic campaigns for bestselling and acclaimed authors including John Grisham, Jon Krakauer, Margaret Atwood, Tina Brown, Colson Whitehead, Ian McEwan, Aimee Bender, Hanya Yanagihara, and others. In her current role, she created the company’s first agile team dedicated to extending author reach and revenue in adjacent places and channels such as podcasting, online learning, licensing and merchandising. In addition, she also oversees PRH’s Author Portal, the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau, and Out of Print Clothing, a literary apparel and accessories business. She also runs Inktank, an internal innovation initiative designed to advance business ideas sourced from across Penguin Random House that align with key strategic priorities and growth opportunities. She is a board member of Worldreader, which has been providing free access to digital books in the developing world for the past ten years. Alison received her B.A. from Columbia College at Columbia University.
Alison lived and worked abroad in Barcelona, Spain with her family for two years, during which time they visited over 35 countries.

David Walter (Research Methods in Media) is originally from the town of Guildford in the South-East of England. After graduating from the University of East Anglia with a BA in English Literature, he held varied roles in online content development, the civil service and as a peripatetic music instructor. Joining Nielsen Book in 2009, David embarked on his career at the intersection of data and publishing, encompassing roles in metadata management, supply chain services and research and analysis. Notable projects during his time at Nielsen include producing the first industry white paper analyzing the link between metadata and sales, and initiating a new BookScan service in Brazil. David moved to New York in 2015, and became part of the NPD business following the acquisition of BookScan in 2017.  There, David leads the NPD Books client development team, supporting publishers and other businesses in effectively using data to develop insights and inform strategy. Outside of work, David’s interests include travel and music.
A drummer and musician for most of his life, the biggest show David ever played was taking part in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012, directed by Oscar-winner Danny Boyle and viewed by a worldwide audience of 900 million.

Paul Whitlatch (Media and Ethics) is an Executive Editor at Crown, an imprint of Random House, with a focus on nonfiction. The best-selling and award-winning books he has acquired and edited include Liza Mundy's Code Girls, Alexis Okeowo's A Moonless, Starless Sky, Andrew Yang's The War on Normal People, Emma Eisenberg’s The Third Rainbow Girl, and Billion Dollar Whale by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright. Whitlatch previously held editorial positions at Hachette, Scribner/Simon & Schuster, and W. W. Norton. He received his degree from New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and was, for several years, the moderator of the Frankfurt Book Fellowship.
Years ago, as an assistant editor, Paul got to spend an afternoon “babysitting” Stephen King and listening to music in the Scribner office while his boss was tied up at a meeting.