Annette Thomas

Last updated

Annette Thomas (born 1965) [1] is an American-born publishing executive specializing in science publishing, who lives in the United Kingdom. In 2020, she was named chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, but left the role in June 2021. [2]

Contents

Early life

Thomas was born in Washington, D.C. in 1965, and grew up near Washington. Her African American father worked as a pharmacist at the Food and Drug Administration; [3] [4] her mother is German. [3] She attended the Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Greenbelt, Maryland. [3] She has a degree in biochemistry and biophysics from Harvard University and a PhD in cell biology and neuroscience from Yale University. [5] [1] [3]

Career

In 1993, immediately after finishing her graduate work, Thomas moved to London to begin her career in publishing as a cell biology editor at Nature . [5] [1] [3] She served as the founding editor of Nature Cell Biology . She became publisher (1999) and then managing director of the Nature Publishing Group in 2000. She was responsible for founding the Nature Reviews series. [1] Other positions that she has held include chief executive of Macmillan Science and Education, as well as leadership roles at Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science citation and abstract search database. [5] [1] [4]

Thomas is a trustee and member of the governing board of Yale University. [5] [6] She is also a past recipient of the prestigious Wilbur Cross Medal, awarded to distinguished Yale Graduate School alumni. [7] She has previously served on the Creative Commons Board of Directors. [6] [8]

Thomas was appointed and named chief executive of the Guardian Media Group on 14 January 2020. [9] [10] [3] [11] She began in the role in March 2020. Later that year, Thomas was recognised as one of the United Kingdom's most influential Black People by being included in the 2021 edition of the annual Powerlist . [12] [13]

In 2021, Thomas said at a media industry conference "we have quality content in spades ... the job at hand is to now go further by strengthening the growing elements of our business". In May 2021 The Daily Telegraph reported that there was serious conflict between Thomas and editor Katharine Viner about finances and the direction the newspaper should take. The previous year The Guardian announced 180 job cuts. [14] On 9 June 2021, it was announced that Thomas would leave the Guardian Media Group at the end of the month. [2] [15] She received £795,000 in severance pay from the Guardian Media Group. It was described as a 'one-off payment and it was reported that she had collected over £1.5 million pounds during her 15 months as chief executive. [16]

Thomas has been appointed as a non-executive director of publisher Pearson plc, from 1 October 2021. [17]

Personal life

Thomas has lived in the United Kingdom since about 1995, most recently in Cambridge. She is married to a scientist. They have three sons and a daughter. [3] [4] [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guardian Media Group</span> British multinational mass media company

Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including The Guardian and The Observer. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Nurse</span> English geneticist and Nobel laureate (born 1949)

Sir Paul Maxime Nurse is an English geneticist, former President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Leland Hartwell and Tim Hunt, for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the division of cells in the cell cycle.

<i>Nature Cell Biology</i> Academic journal

Nature Cell Biology is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio. It was established in 1999. The founding editor was Annette Thomas. The current editor-in-chief is Christina Kary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mo Abudu</span> Nigerian talk show host and actress (born 1964)

Mosunmola "Mo" Abudu is a Nigerian media mogul, philanthropist, and former human resources management consultant.

Sonita Alleyne, is the Barbados-born British co-founder and former CEO of Somethin’ Else, a cross-platform media production company. Alleyne is a member of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and in 2019 was elected Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, becoming the first woman to hold the post since the founding of the college in 1496, as well as the first black leader of an Oxbridge college.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Doudna</span> American chemist and Nobel laureate (born 1964)

Jennifer Anne Doudna is an American biochemist who has pioneered work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Emmanuelle Charpentier, "for the development of a method for genome editing." She is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair Professor in the department of chemistry and the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akiko Iwasaki</span> Immunobiologist

Akiko Iwasaki is a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University. She is also a principal investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research interests include innate immunity, autophagy, inflammasomes, sexually transmitted infections, herpes simplex virus, human papillomavirus, respiratory virus infections, influenza infection, T cell immunity, commensal bacteria, COVID-19, and long COVID.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmanuelle Charpentier</span> French microbiologist, biochemist and Nobel laureate

Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier is a French professor and researcher in microbiology, genetics, and biochemistry. As of 2015, she has been a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. In 2018, she founded an independent research institute, the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens. In 2020, Charpentier and American biochemist Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the development of a method for genome editing". This was the first science Nobel Prize ever won by two women only.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon White (businesswoman)</span> British CEO and former civil servant (born 1967)

Dame Sharon Michele White, Lady Chote, is a British businesswoman who served as the sixth Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, having previously held a variety of roles in the Civil Service.

Samantha Tross is a British consultant surgeon. In 2005 Tross became the first black female orthopaedic surgeon in Britain and has been regularly recognized as one of Britains most influential Black Britons in the annual Powerlist.

David Chaim Rubinsztein is the Deputy Director of the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research (CIMR), Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics at the University of Cambridge and a UK Dementia Research Institute Professor.

Margaret Henrietta Augusta Casely-Hayford CBE is a British lawyer, businesswoman and public figure who is active in the voluntary sector. She is at the forefront of working to create diversity on boards and is joint-manager of a rap artist and digital media entrepreneur. Casely-Hayford was a candidate in the 2024 University of Oxford Chancellor election, described by The Times as an outside bet for the role, with William Hague eventually being elected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Kingori</span> Kenyan-born writer, publisher of GQ magazine

Vanessa Kingori is a multi-award-winning businesswoman with over 20 years of experience in the media and creative industries. She now serves as Google's Managing Director of Technology, Media, and Telecoms, bringing a fresh perspective to the company's business and cultural shifts for the AI era.

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair DBE is a British nurse and former Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). She has specialised in child protection, providing leadership in major hospital trusts in London, teaching, and advising on legal and governmental committees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ric Lewis</span> British businessman

Ric Lewis is a British businessman. He is a founding partner of Tristan Capital Partners, a British property investment firm, and its predecessor, Curzon Global Partners (1998–2008). He is also the founder and chairman of a registered charity, The Black Heart Foundation. He ranked first in the Powerlist 2019, an annual list of the UK's most influential people with African or Afro-Caribbean heritage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarivate</span> American analytics company

Clarivate Plc is a British-American publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business / market intelligence, and competitive profiling for pharmacy and biotech, patents, and regulatory compliance; trademark protection, and domain and brand protection. In the academy and the scientific community, Clarivate is known for being the company that calculates the impact factor, using data from its Web of Science product family, that also includes services/applications such as Publons, EndNote, EndNote Click, and ScholarOne. Its other product families are Cortellis, DRG, CPA Global, Derwent, CompuMark, and Darts-ip, and also the various ProQuest products and services.

The Powerlist is a list of the 100 most influential people of African or African Caribbean heritage in the United Kingdom. The list is updated annually and has been published in book format by Powerful Media since 2007. The Powerlist is not limited to British-born citizens and includes immigrants to the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacky Wright</span> British technology executive

Jacky Wright is a Senior Partner and Chief Technology and Platform Officer of McKinsey & Company.

Jacqueline "Jacqui" McKenzie is a British human rights lawyer specialising in migration, asylum and refugee law. Her legal career encompasses practice in the areas of civil liberties, crime and immigration with solicitors Birnberg Peirce and Partners, and since 2010 running her own immigration consultancy, McKenzie Beute and Pope (MBP), having previously spent more than a decade in senior local government roles with responsibility for equalities, community development, communications and urban development. She joined human rights law firm Leigh Day as a partner in 2021. She is the founder of the Organisation of Migration Advice and Research, which works pro bono with refugees and women who have been trafficked to the UK. McKenzie has won recognition for her work seeking justice for victims of the Windrush scandal that initially gained notoriety in 2018. She was named one of the top 10 most influential black Britons in the Powerlist 2022.

The 14th annual Powerlist, which names the 100 most influential people of African or African Caribbean heritage in the United Kingdom, was judged by an independent panel and published in November 2020, sponsored by JP Morgan & Co, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Linklaters, Refinitiv, Herman Miller, Facebook and The Executive Leadership Council. The 2021 Powerlist came in a year in which public debate on racial injustice had increased, with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and global protests against police brutality. Therefore, chief executive Michael Eboda decided that the 14th Powerlist would honour those who have used their voice to advocate against racial injustice. Furthermore, the rankings highlighted the work of healthcare professionals during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which also resulted in the awards being held virtually on 17 November 2020, hosted by Kwame Kwei-Armah.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Nature Research executive committee". Nature. Archived from the original on 15 January 2020. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Chief executive Annette Thomas to leave Guardian Media Group". The Guardian. 9 June 2021. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ashton, James (30 November 2014). "Annette Thomas interview: Cut out the middle man and bring science straight to the masses" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-07. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 Waterson, Jim (14 January 2020). "Guardian Media Group appoints new chief executive". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Onwuemezi, Natasha (29 March 2017). "Annette Thomas joins Clarivate Analytics board". The Bookseller. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 "Annette Thomas, S.B., '93 Ph.D." Yale University. July 2016. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  7. ↑ "Four Alumni to Join the Distinguished Ranks of Wilbur Cross Medalists". No. 12 November 2013. Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  8. ↑ Park, Jane (10 May 2010). "Welcoming Annette Thomas and Melanie Cornwell to CC". Creative Commons. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  9. ↑ Mayhew, Freddy (14 January 2020). "Guardian group names scientist Annette Thomas as new chief executive". Press Gazette. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  10. ↑ McCarthy, John (14 January 2020). "The Guardian appoints neuroscientist Annette Thomas as CEO to innovate business model". The Drum. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  11. ↑ Tameez, Hanaa' (14 January 2020). "The new CEO overseeing The Guardian has a Ph.D. in cell biology and neuroscience". Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  12. ↑ Lavender, Jane (17 November 2020). "Lewis Hamilton ends incredible year top of influential Black Powerlist 2021". mirror. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  13. ↑ Siddique, Haroon (17 November 2020). "Lewis Hamilton named most influential black person in UK". the Guardian. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  14. ↑ Williams, Christopher (17 May 2021). "Guardian leaders clash over 'who calls the shots'" . The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  15. ↑ Field, Matthew (9 June 2021). "Guardian boss steps down in wake of power struggle" . The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  16. ↑ "Former Guardian Media Group chief received £795,000 in severance pay". Financial Times. 2022-07-20. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  17. ↑ Page, Benedicte (23 April 2021). "Thomas takes up Pearson role". The Bookseller. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.