537

Back row:  Matt Davis, Dave Notton, Phil Buckingham, Mary Rogren, and Brad Griffin
Third row:  Unknown, Charlie Siegel, Jeff Jacobs, Rick Kopfler, and Dennis Stepaniak
Second row:  Unknown, Sue Martin, Julie Yung, Cheryl Ewers, and Tom Williams
Front row:  Mona Westermeyer, Bob Mulvey, Kurt Norton, Chad Bonney, and Ty Field
2001 Finance Conference
San Juan, Puerto Rico

536

Thinking back on Wadsworth….

Thinking back on Wadsworth and Thomson Learning, I think none of us could have foreseen the vast changes in the higher education landscape today, where no business even wants to be called a “publisher” any more.  (Everyone seems to be rebranded as a “learning sciences” or “solutions” business.)

Speaking for myself, I am proud to have been a publisher, and proud of so much that we accomplished together at Wadsworth, Brooks/Cole, Heinle, Southwestern and Custom,  our  Thomson Higher Education group.

Among the things I am proud of are the following:

• Bringing back the Leisy vision of quality and innovation; 

• Restoring a focus on the customer—the student, the professor, the institution, the bookstore, and even the rep who was selling our offerings;

• Being able to recruit top talent from across the industry to senior and middle management positions---not to mention attracting top entry level talent;

• Developing and promoting strong internal talent;

• Winning the vast majority of competitive signings we pursued;

• Establishing an enviable record of success in taking share from the competition and putting them on the defensive, not to mention posting enviable growth and Operating Income numbers;

• Launching many new market-leading titles across all key disciplines, supported by innovative technology offerings;

• Building a strong stable of partners to add new technology tools and capabilities, starting with the power of InfoTrac and CNN in our early years together;

• Cultivating top tier, thought leader authors and helping them develop and shape their ideas into marketplace friendly solutions;
• Producing award-winning designs and publications that raised the bar for so many competitors;

• Targeting and integrating strategic and tuck-in acquisitions to expand and enhance our portfolio, and also add new talent to our team;

• Developing innovative marketing strategies and tools to ensure the success of our new offerings, not to mention our leading edge ecommerce strategies; and

• Celebrating a culture of high performers and strong team players, committed to excellence and ready to have fun.

Thanks to all my friends and colleagues for making my Wadsworth and Thomson experience one of the best times in my life.

Susan Badger

May, 2015

Susan Badger, Priincipal, Badger Consulting Group LLC

After serving as a senior executive for two of the largest educational publishing businesses in the world, Susan founded a consulting practice focused on building strategies for growth, innovation and transformation in the K20 education space. She also serves on the advisory board for several ed tech startups, including BloomBoard, Open Stax, Spark 101, and the Knod Foundation. 
      Prior to launching this consulting practice, Susan was the CEO of the Teacher Education and Development Group at Pearson, providing evidence-based resources to support educator effectiveness, teacher quality and student results. She also served for many years as the CEO for Thomson Higher Education, concluding with the sale of that business to Apax. As CEO of Thomson Higher Education, she helped build, partner and acquire innovative programs and strategies to help transform the business from a primarily print-based publisher to a provider of personalized learning solutions. In that role, she managed the Wadsworth, Heinle, BrooksCole, Southwestern, Custom and Aplia businesses,and was a co-founder of iChapters.com and CourseSmart.com. She is an alumna of Wellesley College and Principia College. 
      She began her publishing career in 1970 as a college traveler in New Jersey for Harper and Row. Thanks to discovering the Tortora A&P text in her first year, she was quickly moved into an editorial track. Her editorial career blossomed at Random House and Allyn and Bacon, where she rose to VP Editorial, before becoming President of Wadsworth in 1996.