Macmillan C.E.O. John Sargent Is Departing

In a statement, Stefan von Holtzbrinck, the chief executive of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, said that Mr. Sargent’s “principles and exemplary leadership have always been grounded in worthy, essential causes, be it freedom of speech, the environment, or support for the most vulnerable. Since Holtzbrinck shares these ideals, they will live on.”

Mr. Sargent is also stepping down from his position on the executive board of Holtzbrinck, where he was one of three members.

His departure caps a decades-long publishing career that began in the 1980s, when he started working at Doubleday. The scion of publishing royalty, Mr. Sargent is the son of Neltje Doubleday, whose grandfather founded Doubleday and Company, and John Turner Sargent Sr., who was president and chief executive of Doubleday. After stints at other companies, including the Children’s Book Division of Simon Schusterand Dorling Kindersley, the younger Mr. Sargent became chief executive of St. Martin’s Press, a Macmillan imprint, in 1996.

Mr. Sargent is a prominent figure in the book world, and was at the center of industrywide clashes with Amazon and the Department of Justice over e-book pricing. Macmillan was the last of the major publishers to settle with the Justice Department in an antitrust suit, in which Macmillan and several publishers were accused of conspiring to raise e-book prices.

Under Mr. Sargent, Macmillan also fought back against President Trump’s attempt to stop the publication of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” in 2018. In a letter to Macmillan employees at the time, Mr. Sargent defended free speech, writing that “as citizens we must demand that President Trump understand and abide by the First Amendment of our Constitution.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/books/macmillan-john-sargent.html