Dutch CEO to head SanomaWSOY's book publishing division

Jacques Eijkens

Veli-Pekka Elonen

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The SanomaWSOY media group has made some refinements to the organisation of its educational and book publishing. On Monday, the company appointed the Dutchman Jacques Eijkens, 50, to head the new SanomaWSOY Education and Books Division.
      The newly-structured division consists of three main businesses: SanomaWSOY Education, WSOY General Literature, and WSOYpro. The core business is now SanomaWSOY Education, which is focusing on educational publishing in the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, and Poland.
      Of the remaining two businesses, WSOY General Literature is the leading general literature publisher in Finland. WSOYpro, in turn, provides a range of training, competence, and communications solutions for organisations and businesses.
      As of October 1st, Veli-Pekka Elonen, 41, will start work as President of WSOY and also as Eijkens's deputy. Elonen was appointed to these posts in June.
      Elonen's predecessor as President of WSOY, Jorma Kaimio, is retiring at the beginning of October. Kaimio's chair in the SanomaWSOY Management Group will be filled by Eijkens.
      WSOY President Elonen will not be a member of the SanomaWSOY Management Group. Instead, he will report on matters concerning WSOY directly to the SanomaWSOY President and CEO Hannu Syrjänen.
     
According to Syrjänen, the organisational shuffle was made necessary by the shift of emphasis towards textbooks. Nowadays more than half of WSOY's net sales and around 80 per cent of the business profits come from educational material.
      In recent years, SanomaWSOY Education has expanded vigorously overseas, and net sales from abroad now exceed those from Finland.
     
In 2004, the group acquired the educational publisher Malmberg Investments, operating in the Netherlands and Belgium, and this year the leading Hungarian educational publishing and training group Láng was added to the portfolio.
      According to Syrjänen, WSOY's interests in Finland will remain unchanged. "It seems all this will have very little effect on WSOY's Finnish operations", Syrjänen explains.
      The division's headquarters will also remain in Finland, despite the fact that Eijkens will be stationed chiefly in The Netherlands.
      The publishing of general literature will also remain untouched, Syrjänen confirms.
     
The reshuffle did not come to Veli-Pekka Elonen as a surprise.
      In Elonen's view this kind of "tag team" management principle is a sensible way to distribute responsibilities between the directors and to ensure adequate attention for the domestic and foreign operations alike.
      "Everything under the WSOY label remains as before. The development of our operations in Finland continues as normal", Elonen says.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  SanomaWSOY buys Finnish edition of free distribution newspaper Metro (14.8.2006)

Links:
  SanomaWSOY news: SanomaWSOY Refines its Structure

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