HBG's Phil Madans to Receive BISG's Industry Champion Award

Since 2014, the Book Industry Study Group has honored members of the book publishing community with its Industry Champion Award, which honors an individual whose efforts have advanced the publishing industry as a whole. This year, the BISG Board is recognizing Phil Madans, Executive Director of Digital Publishing Technology for the Hachette Book Group, for his service to the industry.

Recent honorees have included Pat Payton (Clarivate); Connie Harbison (Baker & Taylor); Janet McCarthy Grimm (formerly with Lindenmeyr); the late Robin Seaman (Benetech); and Diane Degener (LSC Communications). This year, the BISG board honors Phil's decades-long commitment to advancing core aspects of supply chain infrastructure, notably in areas that include identification and metadata. That work continues to this day, as evidenced in his concern and leadership around training a next generation of publishing professionals in data quality.

On learning of the honor, Phil said, "I’m honored to receive this wonderful recognition from BISG. To work within BISG for so many years and with so many intelligent and talented colleagues from every segment of publishing, who make the industry a better place, has been a joy and a major highlight of my career."

The idea that technology should empower, not hinder, the publishing process has been Phil's north star since creating HBG’s first intranet over 25 years ago. In his current role overseeing publishing technology, Phil applies his 40 years of publishing experience to evangelize and implement new solutions for content creation, workflow efficiency, metadata optimization, and system data integration.

Within Hachette, Phil works to ensure that publishing systems meet the needs and requirements of the company's business users. He has helped lead implementations of systems that include digital asset management, production ourchase orders, publicity, title metadata management, ONIX metadata quality, eBooks, desktop publishing, font management, and XML workflows. Most recently he led a company-wide effort to implement a new title management system that supports the full publishing life cycle, from acquisition to rights reversion.

The range pf Phil's accomplishments at Hachette and its earlier iterations is impressive. Phil helped create Dante, an XHTML-based digital content creation system and a true XML-first solution that used one master content file to create all physical and digital formats of a work. He also led the company to obtain Gold Certification in BISG's Product Data Certification Program. 

Internal to Hachette, Phil developed the Hachette Online Lending Library, providing access to HBG eBooks and audiobooks to staff. Similarly, he introduced MARS, a proprietary ONIX metadata quality auditing system for editorial staff. In 2007, Phil rolled out the Sony e-Ink eReader to the company's editorial and sales departments, speeding access while reducing paper and mailing costs. A decade earlier, Phil introduced "Warner Wide Web", HBG’s first intranet serving title metadata and pub schedules. He fondly notes that it ran off a second-hand Mac in his office.

Along the way, Phil always found time to give back to the publishing industry. Over the past two decades, Phil has worked with many industry associations: AAP, W3C, IDPF, GS1, EDItEUR, BIC, and of course BISG, where Phil has chaired or been a member of a dozen committees, task forces, and working groups. In his time working with BISG, Phil chaired its Identification Committee, co-authored "Best Practices for the Identification of Digital Product: A BISG Policy Statement", and served as BISG's representative to the 2015 International ISBN Revision Working Group.

Phil also chaired the EAN transition task force, work that contributed to the streamlined use of ISBN-13. Today, he focuses on the work of the Metadata Committee, while also overseeing Hachette Book Group's membership with BISG.

A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Phil has contributed to Publishing Research Quarterly and the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Independent. He also taught Digital Publishing at NYU’s School of Continuing Professional Studies. In 2019, Phil received the Hachette Book Group's Chairman's Award, given to an individual who has made a measurable positive impact on the company’s innovation, productivity, or growth.

The Industry Champion award will be presented as part of a lunchtime program at the BISG annual meeting, which will take place at the Harvard Club of New York on April 28. Registration is now open.