Richard Collins to Head Sales at Golden Books Children's Publishing Group

Posted on July 16, 1997

Golden Books Family Entertainment announced it has named Richard K. Collins as executive vide president, Sales and Retail Marketing, North America, Golden Books Children's Publishing Group, effective July 28, 1997. Collins joins Golden Books from Unilever/Lipton, where he was vice president, Strategic Customer Management, a group that manages a sizeable percentage of Lipton's business.

The appointment of Richard Collins represents the culmination of a comprehensive study undertaken by Golden Books with the management consulting firm CSC Weston Group in order to develop a new sales strategy. This new strategy will include sales reorganization, sales policy improvement and customer relationship enhancement. Considerable time and resources were devoted to this study because the new publishing management, led by Willa Perlman, president and publisher, concluded that Golden needed an entirely new and more sophisticated approach to sales and marketing in order to achieve growth and industry leadership.

"Expanded distribution channels, fact-based selling, intelligent category management, and a fully integrated sales and marketing approach to account management will win and secure our market share in the future," said Perlman. "Over the past year we have evaluated our strengths and weaknesses, soliciting advice and assessments of our past performance from our customers. We have also looked to the examples set by other consumer products companies as models for more innovative behavior.

"The timing of Rich's appointment is ideal. He comes to us with a grounding in mass market sales and vast experience in the principles of sales and customer management that we are committed to implement at Golden Books. Rich will immediately turn our findings into action. Within the company there will be a full-scale reorganization of the sales marketing and sales information groups, and externally there will be a presentation of new terms, policies and account management strategies to our entire customer base."

"Joining Golden Books presents a very exciting opportunity. What attracted me first and foremost was the entrepreneurial spirit of the company as well as the tremendous equity and heritage inherent in the Golden Books brand," said Collins. "In addition, Golden Books has a key advantage - it's small enough to move nimbly in the marketplace yet has the presence and resources of a much larger company."