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Senior Management

Peter Warwick

President and Chief Executive Officer

Member, Board of Directors

Peter Warwick became President and CEO of Scholastic in August 2021, making him only the third CEO in Scholastic’s 101-year history. As CEO, Peter is responsible for Scholastic’s business strategy, and oversees all business segments and corporate functions. Prior to his appointment, Peter was an independent director on Scholastic’s Board from 2014–2021—a period in which the Company dramatically expanded its reach to global audiences and educators through the move into digital platforms and the creation of a number of new and innovative partnerships. While President & CEO, he continues to serve as a member of the Board of Directors.  

 

Peter’s focus is on carrying out the vision set forth by Dick Robinson to be the most beloved brand in children’s publishing, while continuing to strengthen the company culture and create value for shareholders through a constant focus on innovation. To the role of CEO, Peter brings extensive management and operational expertise in education publishing and in the information and media industries. Previously, Peter held several senior leadership positions at Thomson Reuters, including CEO of significant business units, before retiring from the company in 2018 from his role as Chief People Officer. Peter began his career at Pearson, where he spent 20 years—first in an editorial capacity and eventually becoming CEO of the company’s professional education and information business unit.

Iole Lucchese

Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and President Scholastic Entertainment

Chair of the Board

Iole Lucchese was appointed Executive Vice President of Scholastic Corporation in 2016 and Chair of the Board of Directors in 2021, having served as Chief Strategy Officer since 2014. A 30-year veteran of the Company, she has consistently led innovative efforts to deepen connections with and better support teachers, families, young readers, and other consumers, while expanding access to Scholastic content around the world. During her career, she has worked to modernize Scholastic for the digital age, forge new and innovative partnerships, and extend the Company’s reach to diverse audiences, focusing on content development and the strengthening of the Scholastic brand in publishing and education.   

 

Iole’s strong track record of instigating effective change includes the significant expansion of the Scholastic Canada book publishing and distribution group—ultimately cementing the company’s position as the #1 children’s book publisher in that market. She also led the successful relaunch of Scholastic Entertainment in 2017 by recognizing the untapped potential of the Scholastic brand to bring its beloved stories and content to multiple platforms. Against the backdrop of an exploding streaming landscape, the division rapidly expanded under her leadership, growing to a highly-profitable business as Scholastic’s media activities met the market’s need for engaging children’s content, ranging from animated series like Peabody Award-winning and Daytime Emmy® Award-nominated Stillwater on AppleTV+ and Clifford the Big Red Dog on Amazon Prime Video and PBS Kids, to live action films like Clifford the Big Red Dog and The Magic School Bus Rides Again

Kenneth J. Cleary

Chief Financial Officer

Ken was named Chief Financial Officer at Scholastic in 2017 after serving as Chief Accounting Officer. He joined the Company in May 2008 as Vice President, External Reporting and Compliance. Prior to Scholastic, Mr. Cleary was Senior Assistant Controller at Hertz Corporation, Assistant Controller at Engelhard Corporation, and Manager of Financial Reporting at Sequa Corporation. He began his career as an auditor for KPMG.

Mary Beech

Chief Marketing & Transformation Officer

Mary is a visionary, customer-centric thought leader who positions consumer brands for exceptional growth in the digital space. In this new role for Scholastic, she oversees the development of the company’s brand vision and ensures an exceptional customer experience to better serve educators, caregivers, and children. Mary is known for building strong organizational structures and corporate culture that lead to both digital transformation as well as cost effective customer acquisition and growth. Mary has held c-level positions at luxury fashion brands including Kate Spade and Ralph Lauren, as well as the iconic consumer products division of The Walt Disney Company. She also served as a Scholastic Board member for more than four years. She also sits on the Board of Directors of NextCare Holdings Inc., one of the nation’s largest providers of urgent care and occupational medical services.

Cristina Juvier

Chief People Officer

Cristina Juvier recently joined Scholastic in the new role of Chief People Officer, leading Scholastic’s human resources organization in the U.S. She will also serve as a global resource to bring best practices to the company’s offices worldwide. An experienced global executive and leader of transformative human resources functions, her focus is on professional development and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives. Cristina was previously the Head of Human Resources at Reuters, where she served as Head of Diversity & Inclusion for Thomson Reuters as a whole since 2021. She began her career in corporate law and moved into human resources management working for a number of large corporations in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. A native Spanish speaker, Cristina is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, with a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center.

Lindsey Cotter

Chief Inclusion Officer

Lindsey Cotter, Chief Inclusion Officer, has 36 years of human resources experience cultivating workplaces where employees are challenged to reach their potential and recognized for their contributions. She has been with Scholastic for 22 years, most recently as Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Employee Services.  Lindsey’s appointment to Chief Inclusion Officer allows her to devote her full attention and focus to developing and implementing Scholastic’s five part Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) strategy, which is a core priority for the company. She also heads up talent acquisition and HRIS functions. Earlier in her career, Lindsey served as Regional Director of Human Resources for Stern’s Department Store (a Division of Federated Stores), where she managed employee relations, recruiting, succession planning, compensation and executive development.

Raghushri Sankaran

Chief Information Officer

As Chief Information Officer, Raghu leads Scholastic Technology Services, driving the vision, execution and support of the enterprise technology platforms across all divisions. Raghu also serves as Scholastic’s Chief Information Security Officer and is responsible for the global information security of the company. Driven by a passion for leveraging technology to drive better business outcomes, Raghu takes pride in conceptualizing, building and executing future ready, cost-effective technology transformations delivered at scale. Prior to joining Scholastic in 2015, Raghu led the Healthcare Enterprise Platform team at Siemens Healthcare, served as the Director of Technology at Sapient, and led Intuit’s Enterprise Commerce Platform and Enterprise Order System Middleware groups.

Kevin Conklin

Chief Supply Chain Officer 

Kevin has strategic and operational responsibility for Scholastic’s end-to-end global supply chain, fulfillment, and distribution activities, delivering 350 million books and 300 million magazines to schools and consumer customers. With more than 25 years of experience, he has a strong track record for simplifying processes and identifying state-of-the-art technology solutions to deliver quality customer service consistent with our mission to promote literacy and a love of reading. Prior to joining Scholastic, Kevin served as Vice President, Operations Americas for Pandora Jewelry and Director of Distribution and Logistics for the Clorox Company, overseeing the Burt’s Bees Division. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital Foundation and the Transportation Impact, LLC Advisory Board.

Ellie Berger

Executive Vice President and President, Trade Publishing

Ellie oversees the award-winning Trade Publishing division at Scholastic. She helped guide the complex production and manufacturing of every one of the Harry Potter books, including the seventh book in the series that broke all publishing sales records when it launched in 2007. She is a true expert on kids and reading and the world of children's publishing.

Andrew Hedden

Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

Andy supervises the legal functions for the entire company, including securities, litigation, copyright, trademark distribution and employment issues. Before joining Scholastic in 2008, Mr. Hedden was a partner at Baker & MacKenzie LLP, practicing corporate law with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and securities law. He was a partner of Coudert Brothers LLP for 37 years before joining Baker & MacKenzie in 2005. Mr. Hedden has served the Scholastic Board of Directors for 15 years, and has advised the Board in the areas of corporate governance, acquisitions and securities. Andy graduated from Hamilton College and earned his LLB from Duke University School of Law.

Judy Newman

Executive Vice President and President, Book Clubs

Judy oversees Scholastic Book Clubs, the company's unique school-based book distribution channel that has been a treasured tradition for teachers and students since 1948, as well as the company's robust e-commerce platforms on Scholastic.com. Scholastic Book Clubs reaches nearly 1 million teachers and 26 million children in classrooms nationwide every year. In 1999, Judy created Scholastic Book Clubs’ ClassroomsCare initiative, which teaches children the value of reading and giving. Scholastic donated up to 1 million books to children in need when students in each participating classroom around the country read 100 books. She also oversaw the development of Clubs Ordering On-Line (COOL), a service that allows teachers to submit Book Clubs orders via the Internet, and Parent COOL, which enables families to submit orders to their teachers online with their children and order books together. Judy served for eight years as Chairman of the Board of Reach Out and Read and currently advises this national literacy organization. She is also a Board Advisor to Book Trust.

Rose Else-Mitchell 

President, Education Solutions

Rose leads the education business comprising all Scholastic’s resources in support of children’s social-emotional wellbeing and reading development. With a focus on meeting the needs of teachers and students, Education Solutions offers unparalleled literacy content, instruction and curricula across print and digital formats. The Company’s innovative, equitable, and effective materials, which support children to learn to read and love to read serve over 90% of prek-12 institutions in U.S. First joining Scholastic in 2000, Rose was Senior Vice President, Product Development for the EdTech business, which was sold to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) in 2015, where she was later appointed Chief Learning Officer. She also served as a teaching fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Chairs the Industry Council of the EdTech Evidence Exchange. Rose began her career in education as a classroom teacher in Sydney, Australia.  

Beth Polcari

President of International and Executive Vice President, Special Projects 

Beth leads Scholastic International business operations in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, Export, and Asia. Since joining the Company in 1985, Beth has held leadership roles spanning across key Education business areas giving her keen insights into how to best serve schools with high-quality content combined with digital solutions. Most recently, she oversaw the award-winning Scholastic Classroom Magazines, Digital Subscriptions, and Teaching Resources businesses. During her tenure, Beth has been integral to the growth of Scholastic, having led strategic initiatives including the development of Scholastic Education technology products, such as Scholastic Literacy Pro™ and Scholastic W.O.R.D., along with bringing the digital foundational reading skills program Ooka Island® to the US market. 

Sasha Quinton

Executive Vice President and President, Scholastic Book Fairs

Sasha leads the Company’s Book Fair division, which hosts in-school events that spotlight the importance of independent reading and give students access to affordable, popular books that inspire them to keep reading long after they leave the classroom. These annual events put more than 100 million books in the hands of more than 25 million students and families, helping foster a lifelong love of reading. Sasha began her career in product development with Books are Fun in 2002 and in the ensuing 18 years has developed a reputation as a publishing industry thought leader. She spent nine years at ReaderLink Distribution Services, where she held leadership roles in product development, sales and marketing, culminating in her role as SVP, Marketing and Procurement in which she oversaw all marketing functions for the nation's leading trade book distributor. Prior to Scholastic, she served as VP and GMM, Bookstore, at Barnes and Noble, Inc., the largest retail bookseller in the U.S.

Jeffrey Mathews

Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations

Jeffrey Mathews, who led corporate strategy, business development, and investor relations at Scholastic from 2008 to 2012 after four years as head of investor relations, rejoined the company in 2022. In this new role for the Company, Jeff identifies and evaluates investment and partnership opportunities to accelerate Scholastic’s growth across its leading businesses. He is the key point of contact with the investment community, working directly with leadership to strengthen the organization’s shareholder engagement and long-term value creation strategy.

 

Previously, Jeff served as Managing Partner at Gagnier Communications, a strategic financial communications and investor relations agency with clients across North America, Asia, and Europe. During his career, Jeff also co-founded and led two technology startups and served as Principal at Sard Verbinnen & Co. He holds an A.B. in Biology from Princeton University, and a D.Phil. in Zoology from Oxford University.

Board of Directors

Dr. Andrés Alonso

Dr. Andrés Alonso is an educational advisor to foundations, large urban school districts, and state governments in the U.S and Latin America. He is the Former Co-Chair of the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP), a collaboration with Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and Harvard Business School to support effective leadership teams in urban city schools. From 2013 to 2018, Andrés served as Professor of Practice at HGSE, teaching school reform and helping lead the Education Degree in Leadership Doctorate program. He has held senior leadership positions with Baltimore City Public Schools, the New York City Department of Education, and taught special needs and English language learners in New Jersey public schools. He has a BA from Columbia, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a doctorate in education from Harvard.

James W. Barge

James is the CFO of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., where he has oversight of financial operations and information technology. From 2010 to 2012, he served as the Executive Vice President and CFO of Viacom Inc., having served as its Executive Vice President, Controller, Tax and Treasury since 2008. He was the Senior Vice President, Controller, and Chief Accounting Officer of Time Warner Inc. from 2002 to 2007, with financial oversight of various business units including Time Inc., Little Brown, and Warner Books. Earlier in his career, James held several positions at Ernst & Young. He is an Emeritus member of the Alumni Board for the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. 

John L. Davies

John is a private investor. He retired from AOL in 2002, which he had joined in 1993 as Senior Vice President. In 1994, he founded AOL International, where he served as President until becoming Senior Advisor in 2000. He was also a director of Tickets.com Inc. until March 2005 when it became a private company.

Robert L. Dumont

Robert is an attorney and currently the principal of Robert Dumont PLLC, a boutique law firm specializing in tax and estate planning for international private clients and family offices. He established his private practice after thirty years of experience with large organizations: first as a partner in the law firm of Baker & McKenzie LLC and then as the leader of Deloitte Tax LLP’s international private client practice. Robert is a member of the Bar of the State of New York, the Bar of England and Wales (non-practicing solicitor), and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). 

Linda Li

Linda is a dynamic and purpose-driven leader who brings extensive experience in driving growth and innovation in the consumer technology and media sectors. She currently serves as Senior Vice President & General Manager of Wirecutter at The New York Times, where she sets the vision and strategy for Wirecutter and directs a diverse and cross-functional team to deliver financial results. Before Wirecutter, she led strategy and launched products in various roles at Facebook, The New York Times, and Lending Club. She began her career in management consulting, where she became chief of staff to the Chairman & Managing Director of McKinsey Asia. Linda has an MBA, Master in Public Policy, and AB with distinction from Harvard University.

Verdell Walker

Verdell Walker is the Head of Programming for New Formats at Spotify. She is responsible for finding and activating new white space opportunities for the Spotify content business to grow and leads the programming strategy for new format verticals. Before this role, she served as the Head of Kids Audio Content and led a team of production professionals and child development consultants in creating original audio content for kids aged 3-9 and their families. She also helped direct marketing, distribution, visual branding and design, and operations for Spotify’s kids & family vertical. Prior to joining Spotify, Ms. Walker worked as a global marketing manager at Mattel on the Thomas & Friends brand where she oversaw global brand strategy and franchise planning as well as content marketing for the “Thomas & Friends” series in the U.S. and global markets. She also created and managed the popular Thomas & Friends Storytime podcast, as well as a successful content partnership with leading wellness app, Calm. Ms. Walker previously served as director of strategy at Sesame Workshop where she helped develop long term commercial content and philanthropic strategy for international editions of Sesame Street including Takalani Sesame. Early in her career, Ms. Walker held roles in ad sales strategy at The Wall Street Journal, and in healthcare equity research at Goldman Sachs. Ms. Walker received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and Middle Eastern Studies from Trinity College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She holds the CERT Certificate in Cybersecurity Oversight from the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

David J. Young

David has spent forty-five years in the publishing industry. He started his career at Thorsons in 1970, which was founded by his grandfather and later purchased by Harper Collins, where he held various positions until becoming the Managing Director of Little Brown and Company and in 2000,  was named CEO the Time Warner Book Group. From 2005 to 2013, he was CEO of Hachette Book Group USA, moving to become the Deputy CEO of Hachette UK until his retirement in 2015. During his career, David served on a number of publishing association boards and is currently a board member of Tate Enterprises, Millbank, London, and is the Chairman of Canongate Books Ltd., the Scottish independent publisher.