Markus Dohle Chief Executive Officer November 19, 2015 Dear Penguin Random House Colleagues, I want to share with you today’s news of an imminent change in the leadership of the Penguin Young Readers Group.  DON WEISBERG, who has run the division very successfully as its President since 2008, has decided to accept the position of President, Macmillan Publishers U.S. He will leave us at the end of this month.  Don will be succeeded by JEN LOJA, Senior Vice President and Associate Publisher, who is promoted to President, Penguin Young Readers, effective December 1, 2015, reporting to me.  In this new role, Jen will join the Penguin Random House North America board, and also will become a member of the Global Executive Committee (GEC). With Penguin Young Readers and Random House Children’s Books, Penguin Random House is the only trade publisher with two flourishing, autonomous children’s publishing divisions—and we intend to maintain and build upon their respective publishing and commercial excellence as they continue to operate independently.  Between them, authors and illustrators are able to enjoy an unparalleled multitude of publishing choices for their books and content. As Don demonstrates daily at Penguin Young Readers, he is one of the most versatile and accomplished executives in our company, and I wish I could work with him forever.  But he has a chance to oversee all the adult as well as children’s publishing and sales operations of a major U.S. trade publisher. It is too great an opportunity to pass up, and I respect and support his wish to accept it. Don began his Penguin Random House career in 1980 as a Bantam sales rep. The company and he grew and evolved together, with him rising to Chief Operating Officer, North America for Random House, in which he continued in his long-standing role as the customer-focused head of Sales. His unwavering drive to align and enhance the mutual interests of our publishers and our accounts resulted in hundreds of millions of book sales. In 2008, Don was appointed President, Penguin Young Readers group, with a mandate to match the commercial success of Penguin’s adult publishing. He delivered on that expectation brilliantly. Along the way, he and his team made John Green one of the world’s bestselling authors; published such mega-sellers as THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT and THE DAY THE CRAYONS CAME HOME; THE BOOK WITH NO PICTURES; THE 5TH WAVE; THIRTEEN REASONS WHY;  and IF I STAY;  introduced John Grisham’s Theodore Boone series;  reinvigorated the Penguin Young Readers classic backlist; and published numerous prize-winning titles, including Jacqueline Woodson’s BROWN GIRL DREAMING, last year’s National Book Award winner.  Don also spearheaded the creation of the phenomenally successful Mad Libs app. As he did in his Random House years, Don has raised the bar for leadership excellence. He has our everlasting appreciation for his more than three decades of contributions to our company, and our best wishes for great success always. Replacing Don is no easy task, but the choice of his successor is as natural as it is obvious. I am delighted to announce Jen Loja’s appointment as the new President, Penguin Young Readers group.  Her promotion is a logical evolution and expansion of her current responsibilities, and a recognition of the crucial role she has played side-by-side with Don as his deputy in the transformation of Penguin Young Readers into one of Children’s publishing’s great powerhouses.  As Associate Publisher, Jen has been vitally hands-on in the long-range and day-to-day decision making to move the company forward and to broaden its reach. She is a solutions-centric sounding board for her ten publishers and a motivating leader of the Brand Management, Design, and Digital Content Development groups. Jen inspires enormous trust and confidence from authors and colleagues alike.  Simply put, she knows and understands how her company works—and how to make it even stronger. Working with Jen as President will be as rewarding as it will be joyful for me, our authors and illustrators, and our Penguin Young Readers colleagues.  I am confident that she will lead her division to ever-greater publishing achievement, and I look forward to collaborating with her on the overall development of Penguin Random House as a global company through her participation on our North American Board and GEC.  Please join me in congratulating her.