Michael Pietsch

Michael Pietsch is Chief Executive Officer of Hachette Book Group, a leading US publisher of books for general readers. HBG comprises eight publishing divisions – Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Audio, Hachette Books, Hachette Nashville, Little, Brown and Company, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit, and Perseus Books—and is the U.S. division of the global publishing company Hachette Livre. As CEO, Michael has overseen the acquisitions of Perseus Books, Black Dog & Leventhal, and Hyperion Books during a period of growth and transformation for HBG.

Earlier in his forty-year publishing career, as Publisher at Little, Brown and in editorial positions at Crown and Scribner, Michael edited or published books by acclaimed writers including James Patterson, J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Malcolm Gladwell, Donna Tartt, Michael Connelly, Tina Fey, David Sedaris, Anita Shreve, Walter Mosley, Stacy Schiff, Alice Sebold, Peter Guralnick, Keith Richards, Chuck Berry, David Foster Wallace, and a posthumous memoir by Ernest Hemingway, The Dangerous Summer. Michael continues to edit select books, and his passion for the close partnership between writers and publishers is the basis of his approach to publishing and to his role as CEO.

Michael is a member of Hachette Livre’s International Executive Committee and serves on the boards of PEN America, Poets & Writers, and the Association of American Publishers. He attended Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk, Virginia, and Harvard College. He and his wife, Janet, a children’s book editor, have three children and live north of NYC.