We learn that a Halloween announcement that Stacey Caywood will be appointed President and CEO of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business (U.S.) has come out of the blue and has put the frightners on WK Law & Business staff in the USA.
With this new management announcement comes a raft of structural and personnel changes at the North American Legal & Business division.
The official press release sent out Friday informs us that.
Robert Becker has been moved from WK Law & Business unit to run WK health as of 1 November
Caywood who is currently Vice President of the Legal Professional Group, will now be responsible as President and CEO of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business (U.S.) and will report for the interim period to Nancy McKinstry.
The official press release also says that a new global CEO for Wolters Kluwer Law & Business will be appointed in the future.
The U.K. based Law & Business unit will, for the interim period, report to Mr. Kevin Robert, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting.
The press release goes on to tell us:
Caywood is a seasoned leader with a 16-year track record of success at CCH and Wolters Kluwer where she has led strategic planning, publishing, sales, marketing, and new product development. As head of the Legal Professional Group, part of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, she achieved strong growth as the unit extended its integrated online libraries into specialty areas such as securities law and integrated workflow tools. Ms. Caywood earned a MBA from Northwestern University, J.L. Kellogg School of Management, Chicago, and holds a Bachelor's degree from Tufts University, Medford, Mass.
"In her new role, Stacey will lead our U.S. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business operations in continuing to drive innovation to our legal customers," Ms. McKinstry said. "I am pleased we were able to fulfill both leadership positions from our strong management bench."
But…as always with change comes “structural re-alignment”. To use one of our favourite analogies.
And in a Kluwer internal memo forwarded to HOB dated October 31st .... from Becker & Caywood and titled:
Subject: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business Announces Organizational Changes
Becker writes about the changes he suggests have happened at Kluwer’s North American Legal & Tax unit over the past 5 years
When Law & Business was formed five years ago, we were facing some sizable challenges in our performance from customer, operational and financial perspectives. As we brought together several distinct businesses into one unit, we successfully came together as a team — leveraging our expertise, content and technology to create a more cohesive and successful organization. We also embraced a vision for the future and embarked on our transition from a publisher to a world-class content and solutions provider. Along the way, we reversed declining trends in both revenue and profits and we built a strong foundation for accelerating profitable growth into the future. I thank each of you for your contributions, and I wish you the very best as you take Law & Business to the next level of success.
He then introduces their new boss.
Stacey is a strong leader in whom I have great confidence. She has extensive experience in our core business and a 16-year track record of success at CCH and Wolters Kluwer where she has led strategic planning, publishing, sales, marketing and new product development in a series of ever more challenging roles.
As you know, most recently, she led the Legal Professional Group in achieving strong growth as the unit advanced its integrated online libraries in specialty areas, such as securities law, and integrated workflow tools. Please join me in congratulating Stacey on her new role.
As part of this leadership transition, Stacey will report on an interim basis to Nancy McKinstry, while Wolters Kluwer U.K. CEO Cathy Wolfe will report on an interim basis to Kevin Robert, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting.
A new CEO for Wolters Kluwer Law & Business will be appointed in the future. This interim reporting is being put in place so that Stacey can fully focus on the successful transition to the new Law & Business structure, while providing the additional benefit of allowing Cathy to explore more thoroughly the opportunities we have to leverage global scale and scope in serving the significant tax and accounting customer base we have in the U.K.
During the past several weeks, Stacey and I have worked closely together on transition plans. As we prepare to make this change in senior leadership, we also believe now is the time to make additional organizational changes to further align Law & Business with the markets it serves.
Caywood then adds her own introductory message to staff in the memo indicating that management at WK Law & Reg in North America will consolidate business groups and “realign” the Law & Business Sales & Marketing Group in New York.
Here’s the core of what they intend to do according to the memo.
With the fundamentals of our business in place and working well, Bob and I believe there is an opportunity to achieve higher growth by driving customer focus even deeper into the organization.
As a result, today I am announcing two significant changes to our organization structure. One is the consolidation of our business groups from the current four to two and the second is a realignment of our Law & Business Sales and Marketing group, based in New York.
More specifically, all of the legal groups — Legal Education, Loislaw, Kluwer Law International and Legal Professional — will be realigned into one organization named Legal Markets. This alignment will allow us to better understand and serve legal customers throughout their professional lifecycle, from their legal education throughout their careers as attorneys.
Mark Dorman, now President of Loislaw, has been named Vice President of Legal Markets. Mark joined Law & Business in 2005 to lead Loislaw, where he greatly improved the unit's performance by focusing intently on the small professionals' needs — introducing new products and investing in new sales channels — and by expanding distribution channels through content licensing. Please join me in wishing Mark success in this new role.
The Business Compliance Group will remain as is, focused on serving compliance professionals in specific markets, including health care, HR, pension, benefits and corporate counsel and will continue to be led by Paul Gibson, Vice President.
With respect to the L&B Sales and Marketing group (based in New York, Maryland and Texas), the various direct sales functions that now currently support both the Legal and Business Compliance groups will be realigned and will report directly into Legal Markets and BCG, while all of the marketing communications functions will be combined and consolidated into a new Marketing Communications group.
The Marketing Communications group is being formed to provide shared marketing communications services across all of Law & Business. Annemarie Cocchia, currently Executive Marketing Director for the Legal Professional Group, has been named to lead this group. Annemarie will oversee marketing communications activities, including direct mail, telemarketing and web activities for all of Legal Markets and BCG. A centralized approach to managing these activities will help us leverage best practices, be more effective and achieve greater efficiencies.
And the changes in management mean that the following individuals are being let go by the company. Caywood writes:
As a result of this reorganization, I regret to announce that two members of the Law & Business Executive Committee—Rick Kravitz, Executive Vice President and Group Publisher for Legal Education, and Gerry Centrowitz, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Law & Business—are leaving Law & Business. I thank both Rick and Gerry for their many years of service and significant contributions to Wolters Kluwer. Please join me in wishing them the very best in the future.
Caywood concludes by saying:
Law & Business IT and Operations (LBO) will remain under the leadership of Gustavo Dobles, Vice President. Susan Yules will continue in her role as our CFO, supporting both Law & Business (U.S.) and Wolters Kluwer U.K.
In the coming weeks and months, you can expect to hear more information and details about the new organization as our new leadership transition takes hold.
Our new structure establishes an even stronger platform upon which to build a more customer-focused approach in Law & Business. I am very excited by the opportunities ahead. We have tremendous people, strong content assets and now an even stronger focus on our customers to help ensure we serve them best. I look forward to working with all of you.
Here at HOB we're interested to see what all these changes will mean for the company in the North American market where they play a minor role compared to Lexis & Thomson. We're especially interested that they now want to try and capture clients as law students and take them throughout their professional career as clients. This is the path taken by Lexis & Thomson. Will WK be able to compete.
They also talk about globalising their content and client base. Something that they are reasonably well equipped to do if they can better co-ordinate their offices and allow non us staff and management provide more input about which markets are important to them and where they excel
We suggest for example that they quickly understand how important India & China are. Thomson have already stated their aims in China. Lexis are getting to grips with the Indian market. Kluwer has always had good releationships with legal academics and some practitioners in these markets but hasn't really taken advantage of them. Something that HOB believes hasn't gone unnoticed by Informa law based out of Singapore ..who are rapidly staking their claim as the third big player in legal information publishing in the region
Full Official Press Release Text:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Wolters-Kluwer-Appoints-Robert-Becker/story.aspx?guid=%7BC7679A88-4F52-4E76-9BAB-2DD3E4731574%7D
International Business Times Reports:
http://www.ibtimes.com/prnews/20081031/wolters-kluwer-appoints-robert-becker-as-president-and-ceo-wolters-kluwer-health-and-stacey-caywood-.htm
