Engage with your work fully, whatever it might be: Hachette India MD Riti Jagoorie
Riti Jagoorie, the first woman set to take on a CEO-level role in a multinational publishing firm in India, speaks about her vision for the company and the future of publishing
On 12 June, Thomas Abraham, Managing Director of the India chapter of the multinational publishing firm Hachette, announced his retirement after 18 years. Since 2007, when he joined Hachette after leaving his role as CEO and President of Penguin India, Abraham has steered the company from an Rs8 crore company to an Rs100 crore thriving publishing house. As he moves on, Riti Jagoorie, Vice-President of Product and Marketing at Hachette, will be taking over as Managing Director from January 2026.
Arguably the first woman to take on a CEO-level role in the India arm of a multinational publishing firm, Jagoorie has a lot on her plate. She started her career at Scholastic in 2005, where she ran the Book Club channel for three years before moving to Hachette as a Product Manager. “Books are my passion and this was my calling," Jagoorie says. “[The Twilight series] was taking over the world when I joined Hachette and I saw first-hand what a massive bestseller can do. That fad lasted many years and then Gone Girl arrived and with it a spate of psychological thrillers. Right now, it’s the BookTok bestsellers that are ruling the roost."
While big ideas continue to drive the non-fiction list, “what has remained constant is that we are primarily a back-list driven market," Jagoorie adds. In an email interview with Lounge, she discussed her new role and the future of publishing. Edited excerpts.
As you step into your new role at Hachette India, what are your priorities?
I want to ensure that we continue to deliver profitable growth. I would like to focus on building our local publishing programme and increase its contribution to the top-line revenue. We have had many commercial successes and critically acclaimed titles across genres, and I would like to continue that while also gunning for some big acquisitions. Speed to market, optimising the supply chain and moving as much as we can to local printing will also be a priority for me. It’s good for the business and for the environment. Engaging with our readers directly whether through consumer fairs or building communities will also be a key area. I will ensure that we continue to work closely with bookstores across the country. Curation is so important for a publisher with the depth of range we have, and real discoverability happens only in a bookstore. That ecosystem is imperative to growing readership.
You are the first woman to have a CEO-level job at an international trade publishing house in India. What changes do you hope to see for women in publishing leadership?
Book publishing as an industry generally has a strong representation of women in senior roles (certainly Hachette has had that) and there are many indie entrepreneur publishers who are women. Thomas Abraham (the outgoing MD) has made it a point to emphasize that while they're delighted that I happened to be a woman for its representational importance, the board doesn't go in for quotas and it was the best person for the job that was the key driver of the appointment process. So, I'm happy to believe that it was an equal opportunity appointment.
That said I'm not blind to the glass ceiling that exists in the workforce here and in other industries and if my story as a woman who has worked her way up to the top job is seen as positive symbolism and as something that others can emulate, I'll gladly take that. This milestone means a lot—it’s taken a lot of work to get here. I strongly believe in ‘owner mentality’ which is one of the key pillars of Hachette: you must engage with your work fully, whatever area it might be.
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The Indian publishing industry is navigating shifts in digital readership, regional languages and AI tools. What emerging trends excite you most?
I am glad to see the interest in translated works of fiction and non-fiction. It gives us the opportunity to widen the scope of our publishing and include narratives from different cultures and languages. The sway that social media holds over the younger generation of readers has driven the sales of certain genres like romance and fantasy. Cosy crime has seen an uptick and it’s wonderful to see readers embrace a series like The Bangalore Detectives Club that fits right in. The popularity of shows and films, like Dune, The Wheel of Time and Bridgerton, has led to a surge in sales of the books these are based on.
One of the biggest challenges we face is piracy. We have been working towards combating it, but it will need a concerted effort from the publishing industry to eliminate it. Navigating a rapidly changing tech landscape and workplace dynamics will need an open but informed approach.
What are some editorial directions you’re keen to expand?
I am very keen on expanding our narrative non-fiction list, especially history, politics, current affairs and business. Our fiction list has a mix of all genres be it literary fiction, science fiction fantasy, horror, crime, historical fiction and romance, and we will continue to publish in these areas. I am also keen on publishing diverse voices from across the country and exploring different subjects. I would like to publish the heavy hitters (in terms of revenue) and also leave some room for the ‘passion’ projects—that’s what makes publishing fun after all!
We entered the picture books segment last year and that will be a focus area while we continue to publish fiction and non-fiction for children of all ages. We’ve started the Reference division recently and have published books under the iconic Chambers brand and launched series like Quick and Concise. We will be expanding the list while building the right distribution channels for it.
Tell us about some of your favourite authors and books.
There are far too many! I grew up reading Enid Blyton and then graduated to Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Georgette Heyer. I love Tintin, Calvin and Hobbes, and the Asterix comics. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Manjula Padmanabhan, Philip Pullman, Shehan Karunatilaka and Sarah Waters are some of my favourite writers. I love a good thriller: The Devotion of Suspect X (Keigo Higashino), The Talented Mr Ripley (Patricia Highsmith) and After the Crash (Michael Bussi) are some favourites. I am a film buff and love books on films and filmmakers. Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut and Ingmar Bergman’s memoir The Magic Lantern are my top two. I also love children’s books—Taranauts by Roopa Pai, Moin and the Monster by Anushka Ravishankar and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Maus and Persepolis are my favourite graphic novels.
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