New York,
NY (November
18,
2005) --
Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, today announced the appointment of Peter M. Watts as Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Employee Services, effective December 5, 2005. Mr. Watts will be responsible for guiding Scholastic’s policies and programs that impact more than 10,000 employees in 16 countries. He will be a member of the company’s Management Executive Committee and will report directly to Chairman, President and CEO Richard Robinson.
In making the announcement, Mr. Robinson said, “I am pleased to welcome Peter Watts to our management team. Peter is a strategic business thinker with strong problem-solving capability and a belief in the capacity of people. He will bring outstanding leadership to Human Resources and to the company.”
For the last two years, Mr. Watts has been a Human Resources consultant with clients including Warner-Chilcott, Cardinal Health, Oak Hill Capital, and Bank of America. His previous HR experience has been primarily in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently at Novartis where he was Vice President, Human Resources, for the U.S. Pharmaceutical business with $5.9 billion in sales and 11,000 employees. He led a 120 person staff, was a member of the Executive Committee, and served as Trustee of Novartis Pension and 401(k) assets. He is credited with outstanding leadership in responding to the 9/11 terrorist attack, as well a significant accomplishments in organization development, diversity, compensation and Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS).
Before Novartis, Peter Watts was Vice President, Human Resources, at Warner-Lambert Company in the Parke-Davis Europe division and at Adams USA. He was responsible for several Warner-Lambert corporate planning initiatives as well as developing strong Human Resources functions in Europe and in the U.S.
Mr. Watts is a graduate of Cornell University in Industrial and Labor Relations and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School.
About Scholastic
Scholastic Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHL) is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology. Scholastic creates quality educational and entertaining materials and products for use in school and at home, including children's books, magazines, technology-based products, teacher materials, television programming, film, videos and toys. The Company distributes its products and services through a variety of channels, including proprietary school-based book clubs, school-based book fairs, and school-based and direct-to-home continuity programs; retail stores, schools, libraries and television networks; and the Company's Internet site,
www.scholastic.com.