The Spirit is Willing, but the Cash is Weak December 3, 2008 • Scholastic Inc. New York, NY Register Now

Speakers

Neil Kelly
Chairman of the Board
Valuation Research Corporation

Neil Kelly has more than 20 years of financial advisory experience. This experience includes providing solvency opinions, fairness opinions, and capital surplus opinions, as well as business valuations, purchase price allocations, and intangible-asset valuations.

Mr. Kelly has considerable expertise providing valuation advisory services to the investment banking and private equity community. He has worked with such well known firms as Aurora Capital, The Carlyle Group, Castle Harlan, Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg and Company, Lazard Ltd., and Sun Capital Partners. In addition to servicing the investment banking and private equity community, Mr. Kelly has considerable experience advising telecommunications companies, working for such firms as Global Tower Partners, Centennial Communications, SpectraSite (now part of American Tower), Focal Communications (now part of Corvis Communications), and PSINet.

He holds the designation of chartered financial analyst (CFA) and is an accredited senior appraiser (ASA) certified in business valuation. He holds a master's of business administration degree with a concentration in finance from Drexel University and a bachelor's degree in economics from James Madison University.

Michael Johnson
Full Potential Associates

Michael is a passionate voice for using technology to engage and energize 21st Century learners. Michael has almost 25 years of experience in publishing, library and digital communities. Michael has been involved in a wide range of educational software projects and services that fuel the learning process and spark the imagination of anyone with a thirst for knowledge. Michael has served on several national and international committees through his connections with digital content, publishing, education and technology communities.

John Morse
President & Publisher
Merriam-Webster, Inc.

John M. Morse, President and Publisher of Merriam-Webster Incorporated, joined Merriam-Webster in 1980. As Manager of Editorial Operations and Planning beginning in 1983, and as Executive Editor in 1991, he was responsible for all product-development operations. He became Publisher in 1996, widening his responsibilities to include all company operations, and was named President and Publisher in 1997. He continues to be actively involved in the company's editorial process, including the creation of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition in 2003 and Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary, a dictionary for people learning English as a second or foreign language, in 2008. He is a strong advocate for cross-media development and has written and spoken widely about the evolution of reference books in print and online formats. Mr. Morse is a graduate of Haverford College and holds a Masters of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago.

Chris Palma
Strategic Partner Development Manager
Google

Chris Palma is a Strategic Partner Development Manager in the Content Acquisition group at Google, in support of Google Book Search. He is responsible for developing partnerships with book publishers of all types, in the Western U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.

Mr. Palma spent 15 years in scholarly publishing (Yale University Press, Harvard University Press) before joining Palo Alto-based ebrary, where he was Vice President of Content and Business Development for this leading provider of eBooks to the institutional library market.

He was a member of the American Association of Publishers eBook Steering Committee, and has been a speaker and/or panelist at various industry events, including the PSP and AAUP annual meetings.

Mr. Palma holds a B.S. in Economics from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Michele Robinson
Group Publisher, Scholastic Professional Media Group
Scholastic Inc.

Michele Robinson, Group Publisher of Scholastic's Professional Media Group, has been with Scholastic for close to 17 years. She oversees the Professional Media Group's many offerings targeting educators, including, Scholastic Administr@tor and Instructor magazines and advertising and custom online opportunities on the Teacher and Administrator channels on Scholastic.com.

Michele lives on Long Island with her husband and ten-year-old daughter, Sofie.

Roger Rosen
President
Rosen Publishing Group

Roger Rosen is president of Rosen Publishing, an independent publisher that has provided supplemental educational books and materials to libraries and K-12 schools since 1950. Roger became president of the company in 1980, and has grown the annual publishing program from 65 books to more than 600 titles covering all curriculum areas.

In 2007, the company launched a new digital division, Rosen Online. This division’s first database, Teen Health and Wellness: Real Life, Real Answers, won Library Journal’s Best Reference Sources of 2007, was hailed as a "must have" product in School Library Journal's "2007 Top 10 Digital Resources," and was selected as winner of AEP's 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award in the category of Educational Websites for Specialized Instruction.

Michael Ross
Senior VP, Education General Manager
Encyclopaedia Britannica

Michael Ross is the Senior Vice President, Education General Manager, at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., where he heads worldwide electronic and print publishing. Prior to joining Britannica in 2002, he was the Executive Vice President and Publisher of World Book, Inc., and has held executive positions at other publishing companies, including NTC Publishing Group. He began his publishing career as an editor for Time-Life Books and worked for three years in their Tokyo bureau.

His products and publications have won the highest industry awards, including the Distinguished Achievement and the Golden Lamp Awards from the Association of Educational Publishers; the GLI Award, presented at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair; Learning Magazine’s Teacher’s Choice Award; PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award; Parent’s Choice Award; Family PC’s Top 100 Award; and the Software & Information Industry Association’s Codie Award.

Michael served on the executive committee and the board of directors of the Association of Educational Publishers, including a term as president from 2002 to 2003. He also serves on the board of Intellisophic, the world’s largest provider of taxonomic content. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and in October 2002 was inducted into Printmedia’s Production Executives’ Hall of Fame.

He has contributed to several industry publications, including the Experts’ Guide
to the K-12 School Market, and wrote Publishing Without Boundaries: How to Think, Work, and Win in the Global Marketplace, published by AEP. He is frequently invited to speak at international conferences on electronic publishing, strategic alliances, and licensing.

He has a B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota, an M.A. from Brandeis University, and a certificate from Stanford University’s Advanced Management College.

Gina Strazzabosco-Hayn
Vice President
Rosen Publishing

Gina Strazzabosco-Hayn has worked with Rosen Publishing for more than 17 years, first in editorial, then production, and finally as vice president. She has helped to launch several divisions within the company, including its elementary imprint PowerKids Press, its educational division Rosen Classroom, and, most recently, Rosen Publishing Online. Over the course of her tenure, Gina has championed innovative technological methods of creating and marketing Rosen's print and online products.