We are very sorry to announce that Melissa Hall, our Director of Development & Operations, will be leaving her position at the end of December. Mel has been an invaluable member of the BOA team over the past seven years, and we will greatly miss her as she moves on to pursue new goals.
Mel has served the organization extremely well. It has been our good fortune to have her many skills, expertise, good judgment, and amazing multi-tasking abilities in our corner for so long. We have always appreciated the fact that she not only gets things done, but she gets them done at a very high level. Those who are fortunate to know her can also attest to the fact that she is an engaging, energetic, fun-loving person who leaves a positive influence wherever she goes. We certainly wish Mel all the best as she moves on to her next phase.
In typical Mel fashion, she has given us plenty of notice so that she will be available as a trainer and mentor for her last couple of months at BOA. Since her announcement to the BOA Board of Directors, we have been underway with a re-evaluation of BOA’s staffing needs and are now in the midst of the resultant hiring process.
We will not only be hiring a new Director of Development & Operations, but will be expanding the organization to add a fourth member to what has been a three-person staff for many years. We are pleased to announce that Jenna Fisher, BOA’s Director of Marketing & Production, will be moving into a more focused marketing role as BOA’s Director of Marketing beginning in January 2017. We greatly value Jenna’s work, and are excited to see how this new step for her will bolster our audience engagement and magnify brand recognition for BOA, our authors, and our titles. The fourth member we will be hiring is a new Director of Publicity and Production. We acknowledge that a more focused publicity role is vital to our press as we move into the future, and are eager to see this position not only amplify BOA’s public presence, but connect readers with authors in more tangible ways.
Yes, there are changes underway. But we are certain that BOA’s work, under the continued remarkable leadership of Publisher Peter Conners and our now four-person staff, will continue at the highest levels. We remain committed to our authors, readers, and supporters as we continue on with BOA’s amazing publications and celebrations of the highest quality in contemporary literature.
—Jack Langerak, BOA Board Chair
