Safari® Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com), the leading on-demand digital library for technology, digital media and business professionals, today announced the appointment of Andrew Savikas as CEO, and Steve Kolenda as CFO/COO, following an extensive recruitment effort.
"After working for O'Reilly Media for the past nine years, I was thrilled to begin working with Safari Books Online more closely in the last year and to become a part of the evolution of the company," said Savikas. "That evolution starts with building on the development of online books and videos and adding innovative new ways to break down and simplify complex information people need to learn to advance in their careers."
"Publishing has undergone transformational change over the last decade and Safari Books Online has been at the forefront of that change. We're going to make sure that continues," said Kolenda, CFO/COO, Safari Books Online.
"We are very pleased to hear of the formal appointments of Andrew Savikas as CEO and Steve Kolenda as CFO/COO at Safari Books Online," said Juli Rochon, director, Nuance University, Nuance. "The vision for Safari Books Online seems much better defined since Andrew first began his role as interim CEO. Andrew's technology knowledge along with Steve's operational strength and experience with the publishing and learning industries puts Safari Books Online in an excellent position to excel in the years ahead. Safari Books Online has become a vital resource for our technical teams and I look forward to a strong continued partnership between Safari Books Online and Nuance as we both take our organizations forward.”
"Safari Books Online has successfully delivered books online by subscription for more than a decade to tens of thousands of individuals, thousands of businesses, and millions of public and academic library patrons around the world," says Savikas. "Although Safari Books Online has been an important early innovator in online reading and learning, we're far from done changing the way people read and learn on the web."
Andrew Savikas
Chief Executive Officer
Andrew Savikas is the Chief Executive Officer at Safari Books Online. Prior to his appointment as CEO, he held the positions of VP of Digital Initiatives at O'Reilly Media, Program Chair for TOC: O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference, and interim Chief Executive Officer of Safari Books Online. Andrew blogs at safaribooksonline.com/blog and toc.oreilly.com, and is a regular contributor to the O'Reilly Radar blog and to "Book: A Futurist's Manifesto," a collection of essays on the future of publishing, (
http://book.pressbooks.com/). Andrew previously led the digital publishing and ebook program and strategy for O'Reilly Media, including both print and digital production of all O'Reilly books. He sits on several boards, including the Book Industry Study Group and the International Digital Publishing Forum, and is on advisory boards for Bookshare and the University of Michigan Press. He frequently speaks at technology and publishing conferences all over the world and is also the author of "Word Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming your Text".
Andrew holds a B.S. in Media Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston.
Steve Kolenda
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Steve Kolenda has served as the part-time CFO for Safari Books Online since July 2001. As full time CFO and COO of Safari Books Online, Steve will now manage business intelligence and analysis, finance, sales operations, customer service and HR functions of the company. Steve has worked in educational publishing for over 20 years and has held senior finance positions in the corporate, college and professional publishing units of Pearson. He earned a B.S. in Management from Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH.
About Safari Books Online
Safari Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com) is an on-demand digital library that delivers expert content in both book and video form from the world’s leading authors in technology and business. Technology professionals, software developers, web designers, and business and creative professionals use Safari Books Online as their primary resource for research, problem solving, learning and certification training.
Safari Books Online offers a range of product mixes and pricing programs for organizations, government agencies and individuals. Subscribers have access to thousands of books, training videos and prepublication manuscripts in one fully searchable database from publishers like Cisco Press, Prentice Hall Professional, O'Reilly Media, Addison-Wesley Professional, Microsoft Press, Sams, Que, Peachpit Press, John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier, IBM Press, Adobe Press, FT Press, Apress, Manning, New Riders, Apple Certified, Course Technology, Splash Media and dozens more. For more information about Safari Books Online, please visit us online.
Contacts
Safari Books Online
Rose St. Clair » (707) 827.4100
or
Rocket Science
Rich Mullikin » (415) 464.8110 x 216
