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| Meryl Halls | |
The building of bookshop communities, the importance of new audiences and the intelligent curation of brilliant books are topics which resonate across the world.... New CEO Robbie Egan has taken over the ABA [Australian Booksellers Association] at a crucial time. A long-time bookseller with an MBA (he ran operations for 15 years at Readings in Melbourne before taking the job at the ABA), he combines a forensic awareness of trade infrastructure, finances and politics with a deep commitment to making the world better for Australian booksellers. He’s unafraid to shake the tree, already challenging some of the long-held shibboleths of the trade there, and is undoubtedly going to strengthen the ABA, where he runs a small, tight team, already producing impressive campaigning, lobbying and marketing work. In a year where the American BA, in a quirky coincidence, is also going to welcome a new CEO, we are looking forward enormously to working with the Australian BA team, and our U.S. colleagues, to make English-language bookselling stronger, better equipped to succeed and feistier than ever."