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Peter W. Olson: By the Book
Photo by Steve Boljonis
The office of Random House chairman and CEO Peter Olson is a quiet, booklined oasis above the clamor of midtown Manhattan, a tranquil setting that mirrors Olson's composed manner and lofty perspective as head of the world's largest consumer trade publisher. In its last fiscal year, the company's trade publishing divisions —which include Bantam Dell, Knopf, Doubleday Broadway, Ballantine, Crown, and Random House —published over 3,500 titles; 169 landed on the New York Times bestseller list; 28 sold over one million copies.
"Reading has always been a passion, so the idea of actually being in the book business fascinated me," says Olson, who joined the German media corporation Bertelsmann in 1988 and worked his way up to chairman of its North American book group. When Bertelsmann acquired Random House in 1998, Olson was selected to lead a company that boasts some of the biggest names in world literature, including Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, and John Updike.
In a volatile industry known for the intelligence, passion, and eccentricity of its publishers, Olson emphasizes the importance of face-to-face meetings over memos, as well as the need to chart a steady course and maintain a sense of humor at all times. "We have an unusually talented team of publishers," he says. "They're very individualistic and very challenging. As a result, I have the most interesting job I could imagine."
When Olson graduated from Harvard College in 1972, he didn't realize such a position existed. He went directly to HBS; after earning a joint degree from Harvard Law School, he worked as an associate with law firms in Washington, D.C., and Tokyo before moving to international banking. "I learned Russian and German in college and had a deep intellectual curiosity about other countries," Olson says of his twelve-year stint in Japan and Germany. "My first marriage was to a Russian woman, so I also got to know the Soviet Union very well." He returned to the United States in 1989, when the eldest of their three children was 11 years old. The couple subsequently adopted two children from Russia, now 9 and 12 years old. Recently divorced, Olson married Candice Carpenter (MBA '83), the former chairman and CEO of iVillage, in September.
With the future of print publishing in a digital age an ongoing topic of debate, one of Random House's responses is the e-book imprint AtRandom. com. "We decided that the potential for e-books goes beyond digitalizing a bestseller; it's an opportunity to introduce new voices and genres to readers," Olson comments. At Random.com titles are also available in paperback and represent a variety of genres, from Army of She, a biography of the Icelandic singer Björk, to Men Seeking Women, an anthology of short stories about Internet romance.
Given the demands of his business and travel schedule —Random House has operations stretching from London to Buenos Aires —how does Olson manage to devour over one hundred books a year? "If you love something, you find time to do it," he says simply, pulling a bookmarked copy of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song off his desk. "Sometimes, in a rare quiet moment, I'll close my door and read."
—Julia Hanna
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