Mike Symons has been appointed CEO of U.K. children's book publisher Parragon Books, the Bookseller reported. He succeeds Paul Taylor, who will become CEO of gift, homeware and toy firm Wild & Wolf. In January, Symons left Penguin Random House, where he had been group sales director.
"I'm looking forward to the challenge of leading this business over the coming years," he said. Symons began his career with Reed Children's Books, moving to Thomas Cork and then to Penguin, where he was part of the management team that worked on the merger of Penguin and Random House, the Bookseller noted.
Parragon, part of DC Thomson, has offices in New York, Cologne, Delhi, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore. The company announced last year that it planned to increase its U.S. sales over the next five years, and established a U.S. publishing team in September.