NPG executive committee
Steven Inchcoombe, Managing Director, London
Steven Inchcoombe was appointed Managing Director of Nature Publishing Group, Chairman of Macmillan India and an Executive Director of Macmillan Publishers Ltd in October 2007.
Prior to his current position, Steven was International Director for Macmillan. Steven joined the Macmillan Board in 2006 and worked closely with Macmillan Education, Macmillan India and Macmillan Production (Asia) Ltd (MPAL) in Hong-Kong with a keen focus on growth, profitability and digital strategy. Before joining Macmillan, Steven was UK Publisher at The Financial Times newspaper, having held board positions at The Financial Times Group, and FT.com between 2000-2006. From 1990-2000 he was with Interactive Data Corporation, a specialist in digital and online services for financial institutions. Steven studied physics at Merton College, Oxford and qualified as a chartered accountant with PWC.
Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, London
Philip Campbell is the Editor-in-Chief of Nature and the Editor-in-Chief of Nature publications. His first degree was in aeronautical engineering, following which he took an MSc in astrophysics (Queen Mary College London), and a PhD in upper atmospheric physics (Leicester University). He joined Nature in 1979, becoming physical sciences editor in 1982. He left Nature in 1988 to be the founding editor of Physics World. He took up his present position in December 1995. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
John Carroll, Operations Director, London
John Carroll joined Nature Publishing Group as Operations Director in July 2007. A newly created role, as Operations Director John has overall responsibility for NPG's subscription management and customer service systems, as well as developing a strategy for NPG's customer information systems.
John is an operations and customer service executive, with a proven track record in developing and deploying business critical systems and managing vendor and customer relationships. From 1997-2005, John worked at Elsevier, where he held a number of positions, including Global Director, Sales Operations and Customer Support, and, most recently, Vice President, Publishing Technology. During his time at Elsevier, John was responsible for developing and deploying a number of major systems, including subscription management, e-commerce and customer relationship management in addition to managing global customer support for Science Direct.
Peter Collins, Publishing Director, London
Peter joined Nature Publishing Group from Elsevier in 2000 as the launch editor of Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Peter has held various publishing positions within the company including publisher of the Nature Reviews series and publisher of Nature. In 2004, he was appointed to the Executive Committee of Nature Publishing Group and at various times has been responsible for Nature, the Nature research titles, the Nature Reviews titles and display and classified advertising. Peter's current remit focuses on biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and biobusiness.
Education: London University (BSc in applied biology, PhD in neuroscience) Cambridge University (6 years post-doctoral research).
Timo Hannay, Publishing Director, Nature.com, London
Timo Hannay joined Nature's Tokyo office in 1998. Before that he had worked as a neuroscientist in Oxford and Tokyo, and at the London office of McKinsey & Company. Timo was initially in charge of expanding NPG's online presence in the Asia-Pacific region, including the launch of NatureAsia.com. He moved to Nature Publishing Group’s London office in 2000, where he took responsibility for Web Production, going on to form a New Technology team and later a Web Publishing department. His primary responsibilities are Nature.com, Naturejobs, Nature Methods and Nature Protocols, and online innovation. Up-to-date information about the latter can be found on the Nascent blog.
Education: Imperial College, London (B.Sc. in Biochemistry); University of Oxford (D.Phil. in Neurophysiology).
Richard Hartgill, F.C.C.A., Chief Financial Officer, Basingstoke
Richard has been with Macmillan since January 1979 and became a director in 1983. Previously, Richard worked with Wiggins Teape Limited (now Arjo Wiggins) and Tate & Lyle Limited after serving articles in an accountancy practice.
Finance Controller/Director of Nature Publishing Group since 1987. Also Finance Director of Palgrave Macmillan since 1990.
Alison Mitchell. Publishing Director, London
Alison joined NPG in 1996 as a News and Views editor on Nature. In 2000 she was launch editor of one of the first three journals in the highly successful Nature Reviews series: Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology. Alison was appointed Publisher of the Nature Reviews journals in 2003, and in 2005 she was appointed to the NPG Board as Publishing Director for the academic journals division. Alison is now responsible for the six Nature research journals and six Nature Reviews journals in the life sciences, and for British Dental Association publications and the eight Nature Clinical Practice journals.
Education: Durham University (BSc Molecular Biology and Biochemistry); Imperial Cancer Research Fund (PhD in Molecular Biology).
Howard Ratner, Chief Technology Officer, New York
Howard Ratner is Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice-President, for the Nature Publishing Group. Based in New York, Howard is in charge of US operations and has global responsibilities for Production and Manufacturing, Emerging Technologies, Web Development and Operations, and IT across all NPG products. Howard's prior positions include Director, Electronic Publishing & Production for Springer and a member of the production staff at John Wiley & Sons. He serves on the board of directors for CrossRef and CLOCKSS, as well as leading CrossRef Web Services, and is a member of the CCC Publisher Advisory and the STM Future Lab committees.
Della Sar, Marketing Director, London
Della Sar is the Global Marketing Director for the Nature Publishing Group. Della has spent her entire career in scientific publishing and joined Nature Publishing Group in May 2000. Prior to this she spent almost 25 years with Elsevier Science by default and where her most recent position was Corporate Marketing Director.
David Swinbanks, Publishing Director, Tokyo
David Swinbanks joined Nature in June 1986 as Tokyo Correspondent after completing postdoctoral research at the Ocean Research Institute of Tokyo University. In 1987, he established Nature Japan K.K. with two Japanese colleagues to handle publishing of Nature in Japan. In 1996, David led development of a Japanese language website, www.naturejpn.com which has since become the multilingual natureasia.com website with close to 100,000 users. David relocated to the UK in July 2001 to oversee Nature's operations worldwide and to take on global responsibility for all advertising and sponsorship in NPG, as well as oversight of the Nature News Service, which was transformed into news@nature.com in 2004 and in 2007 became Nature News. He also was, and still is, responsible to the NPG executive committee for developing NPG's physical sciences publishing program. David returned to Tokyo in 2005 to lead the expansion of NPG's publishing activities in the Asia-Pacific region, now expanded to include India. He is now also responsible for developing Macmillan Medical Communications in the region and in non-English speaking and emerging countries such as Spain and Latin America.