Ms. McIntosh is a digital pioneer and media executive with decades of experience leading business transformations. She is CEO and Publisher of Authors Equity, Inc., a book publisher she launched in March 2024, dedicated to a reshaped relationship with authors and publishing talent. The company鈥檚 emphasis on profit sharing, flexibility, transparency and long-term collaboration has drawn a wide-ranging list of bestselling and emerging authors, with the first books coming to market in fall 2024. She is a former CEO of Penguin Random House US, the world鈥檚 largest book publisher. While there and during a post at Amazon, she played a seminal role in each of the major inflection points in the consumer book market over the past three decades, including the birth of ecommerce, digital audio and ebooks. She serves as an independent director of Simon & Schuster, the global book publisher acquired by KKR in 2023. She is president of Poets & Writers, a nonprofit dedicated to serving the needs of creative writers, and she is an advisor to Shimmr AI, a startup developing AI-supported ad tech for books. She is a regular speaker about the future of book publishing; including delivering 2024 keynotes at the Readmagine conference in Madrid and the New Zealand Publishers Association.
A major profile in The New York Times said she 鈥渟tands out as someone who at every turn has rejected conventional thinking, and who has had an uncanny degree of foresight about technological change.鈥 She is known for her belief in the critical importance of nurturing creative talent during the age of the algorithm and, now, of AI. Her leadership has been celebrated by Forbes (2021 鈥50 Over 50: Vision鈥 list), Girls Write Now (2021 鈥淎gent of Change鈥 award), and the UJA (2022 Publishing Titan Award).
Ms. McIntosh is a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.