Past Inductees

Peter Jovanovich
Pearson Education
2006

Peter Jovanovich began his career in publishing in 1972 as a college sales representative for Macmillan. He held various editorial and marketing positions in Macmillan’s College and Trade Divisions until 1977 when he was named a vice president of Macmillan Publishing and head of its trade division.

Mr. Jovanovich joined Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., in 1980 and held a series of positions including President of HBJ’s Trade Division, Managing Director of HBJ, Ltd. (London) and President of Academic Press. In 1985, he became Executive Vice-President of the University and Professional Group and in 1989 year was named President and CEO of HBJ, succeeding his father, William, who had held that position since 1954.

In 1992 Mr. Jovanovich was recruited from HBJ by McGraw-Hill to become CEO of Macmillan/McGraw-Hill School Publishing. In 1995, he became President of McGraw-Hill’s Educational and Professional Group. During his tenure, McGraw-Hill became the largest educational publisher in the world.

Mr. Jovanovich became Chairman and CEO of Addison Wesley Longman in 1997, a worldwide educational publishing division of Pearson plc. In December 1998, Pearson plc purchased the educational and professional businesses of Simon & Schuster. Mr. Jovanovich oversaw the integration of Simon & Schuster with AWL, which is now Pearson Education, the world’s largest education company. Mr. Jovanovich held the position until his retirement in 2005

He also served on the board of the Association of American Publishers until February 2005 and is Chairman of the Alfred Harcourt Foundation. He is a graduate of Princeton University and lives with his wife, Robin, a newspaper editor and writer, and their two sons Nicholas and William in Rye, New York.