Platform Strategies 2023

Stuart Leitch

Chief Technology Officer, Silverchair

Stuart leads the strategic evolution and expansion of The Silverchair Platform, designing and leading technology initiatives for greater platform scalability and capability while enhancing Silverchair’s unparalleled flexibility for new product development. Stuart joined Silverchair in 2012 and has twenty years of enterprise architecture, system design, and software development experience in the education, engineering, nonprofit, and investment industries.

Holden Thorp

Editor in Chief, Science Magazine

Holden Thorp is the Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals. He came to Science from Washington University, where he was provost from 2013 to 2019 and professor from 2013 to 2023. Thorp earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from UNC and a doctorate in chemistry in 1989 at the California Institute of Technology. He holds an honorary doctor of laws degree from North Carolina Wesleyan College and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on the scientific advisory boards of the Yale School of Medicine and the Underwriters’ Laboratories Research Institutes.

Jessica Miles

Vice President, Strategy, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group

Jessica Miles is Vice President, Strategy and Investments at Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. She leads strategic planning, mergers & acquisitions, and investments in science and technology to support the development of new products and services for advancing research and science communication. Previously, she worked in the legal sector before joining Cell Press and Elsevier, where she organized conferences and webinars, managed the Trends series of review journals, collaborated with societies, and transformed end-to-end publishing processes across Elsevier’s journal portfolio. Jessica has consistently championed inclusive and rigorous science, advocating for sex and gender-based analysis in research, DEI in peer review, and underrepresented communities in STEM. She holds a doctorate in Microbiology from Yale University.

Chris Broekhoff

President, MEI Global

Chris Broekhoff is President of MEI Global, LLC, an international content licensing agency committed to creating strategic alliances between content publishers and information industry vendors. For nearly two decades, as the leader of MEI Global and COO of its predecessor, MEI, Chris has helped publishers navigate the evolving opportunities and pitfalls of content licensing. Chris began his career in editorial and product management for an early internet directory and search engine. He holds a BA and MA from Stanford University.

Betsy Donohue

SVP Business Development, Silverchair

Betsy is a business development professional with more than 25 years of creative sales, product development and marketing experience. She has successfully built strong partner relationships to leverage commercial success, and instinctively discovers and develops new opportunities for expanding profitability of commercial partnerships.

Dustin Smith

President, Hum

Dustin Smith is the Co-founder and President of Hum. For over 15 years, he’s worked at the cross-section of scholarly publishing and tech innovation. He leads Hum’s product vision, strategy and development, and oversees solutions that leverage AI to unify and activate first-party data, including Alchemist, Hum’s deep AI suite. He’s particularly passionate about helping publishers harness data to drive reader engagement, content intelligence, author/reviewer recruitment, and more.

Colleen Scollans

CMO, Clarke & Esposito

Colleen Scollans is Practice Lead for Marketing & Customer Experience at Clarke & Esposito. She is a seasoned marketing, digital strategy, and customer experience leader and a recognized marketing technology expert who frequently speaks and writes on marketing strategy and digital transformation. Colleen leads C&E’s clients to success in marketing, digital strategy, and customer experience – whether it’s building a new marketing vision and strategy, elevating branding and messaging, or selecting and integrating new MarTech across the organization. Formerly global CMO for Oxford University Press’s (OUP) Academic Division, Colleen led a team of over 250 worldwide and spearheaded OUP’s digital and marketing transformation. Prior to joining OUP, Colleen held marketing and leadership roles at Wiley, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and First Union Bancorp.

Rory Williams

Director, Communications & Marketing, Rockefeller University Press

Rory Williams is Director of Communications and Marketing at Rockefeller University Press, which publishes Journal of Cell Biology (JCB), Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), Journal of General Physiology (JGP) and co-publishes Life Science Alliance (LSA). His New York–based team collaborates across departments to raise the visibility of RUP’s portfolio, promote the journals’ groundbreaking research and innovative authors, and engage the scientific community. Prior to joining RUP in 2016, he was Director of Communications and Marketing at the American Thoracic Society and has also served as an editor for small publishers and daily newspapers in California.

Erin Ganley

Director of Research Marketing, Oxford University Press

Erin manages the global marketing team responsible for driving awareness and engagement with Oxford’s academic content (books, journals, and reference). She’s had over a decade of experience in journals marketing since her start at OUP in 2006 and she has since led teams focused on marketing transformation; strategy and performance; continuous improvement; and ensuring OUP meets the needs of partners and authors. She is based in Raleigh, NC.

Veronica Showers

Vice President, Customer Success, Silverchair

Veronica is the VP of Customer Success with more than 15 years of experience in the scholarly publishing industry. She specializes in content hosting, peer review, and production technologies. She excels at listening to publishers to evaluate their workflow needs and collaboratively develops creative and forward-thinking solutions. Veronica combines her passion for technology, deep industry expertise, dedication to customer satisfaction, and analytical mindset to drive exceptional results. As an industry speaker and leader, Veronica has made significant contributions to organizations such as the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE). In her spare time, she enjoys adventures with her twins and indulges in anything SciFi.

Allison Belan

Director, Strategic Innovation and Services, Duke University Press

Allison C. Belan is the Director for Strategic Innovation and Services at Duke University Press. She leads strategic enterprise projects for the press and manages the information systems and technology portfolio. She acts as director of the Scholarly Publishing Collective and Project Euclid, two press-managed initiatives that provide hosting, distribution, and sales services to other mission-driven publishers.

Phoebe McMellon

CEO, GeoScienceWorld

Phoebe McMellon is the CEO of GeoScienceWorld, a nonprofit collaborative and comprehensive resource for the geosciences community and an essential partner to 40+ earth and planetary science society publishers. Phoebe is a results-oriented business leader with over 20 years’ experience working in the public, private and non-profit sectors in the US and abroad. She holds a B.S. in Geology from Long Island University and a M.Sc. in Geology from the University of Canterbury, where she attended on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Phoebe spent the early part of her career working as a hydrogeologist and water resources scientist. Prior to GeoScienceWorld, Phoebe was Director of Commercial Strategy, Marketing and Partnerships at Elsevier. During her tenure at Elsevier, she worked in a variety of commercial-facing roles in product management, business development, marketing, and strategy, specifically in business units where partnerships and aggregation of content, data and information were critical growth strategies. She currently serves on the Datapages Board of Directors and has held a variety of elected and volunteer positions in a number of non-profit organizations.

Wendy Queen

Director, Project MUSE

Wendy Queen is the Director of Project MUSE at Johns Hopkins University Press. She began her career focusing on the intersection of human interaction and technology. With a background in the humanities and a Masters in Information Arts and Technologies, Wendy first joined MUSE in a technical role. Through the years and many positions at MUSE, her leadership and contributions have ensured that MUSE continues to innovate across its platform and business models for the benefit of its partner publishers. Wendy has served on boards and committees for COUNTER, AAP, CrossRef, NISO, AUPresses and ALPSP. She serves on the Scholarly Communications Steering Group at Johns Hopkins University and is a member of the executive leadership at JHU Press.

Will Schweitzer

President, Silverchair

As Silverchair’s President, Will works with the CEO and the management team to lead Silverchair. He oversees our business development, customer success, delivery, finance, product, people operations, and technology teams, making sure our products, services, and growth strategies meet the needs of our growing community. He has a deep knowledge of scholarly publishing, having worked in the industry for over 18 years in product and publisher roles for leading commercial and society houses including, most recently, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Science Magazine), SAGE Publications, the American Psychological Association, and Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.

Tanya Laplante

Head of Product Platforms, Oxford University Press

Tanya Laplante is Head of Product Platforms for Oxford University Press’s Academic Division. Working closely with key stakeholders, she oversees the strategic development of OUP’s research publishing platforms, including Oxford Academic, which features over 500 journals and 40,000 books. She is dedicated to delivering innovative roadmaps with capabilities and features that highlight and promote Oxford University Press’s first-class publishing while meeting the needs of users, customers, and partners.

Lauren Kane

CEO, BioOne
Lauren Kane is CEO of BioOne, the innovative nonprofit collaborative and publisher of more than 350 titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. With two decades of experience in scholarly communications, Lauren previously held leadership roles at both Delta Think and Morressier. A frequent industry contributor and speaker, she proudly served on the SSP Board of Directors and as the 2020-2021 SSP President. She holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MBA from the University of New Hampshire.