Ronald Blunden

Ronald Blunden is citizen of France and the United States.

After studying literature at La Sorbonne and having done his military service in France, he began his career as a literary translator, mainly for Editions Stock and Editions Denoël. In 1976, he joined Hachette’ Children’s Books Division and launched Voies Libres, a fiction imprint for young adults.

Three years later, he moved to Mazarine, a new general interest publishing house created by Jean-Etienne Cohen-Séat in association with Hachette, as Executive Editor. Six years of hard, exciting work followed, rewarded by a significant number of best sellers. With the acquisition of 100% of Mazarine by Hachette in 1985 and the subsequent changes it entailed, Ronald opted for a radical career change that took him from publishing to corporate communications.

He was a communications VP successively with Schlumberger, in France and in the US, Thomson and IBM. In 1995 he was appointed Senior Vice President for corporate communications of TF1, France’s leading commercial TV network.

After eighteen years as a communications executive, Ronald figured it was time for him to return to publishing, his lifelong passion, and was reunited with his old mentor and friend Jean-Etienne Cohen-Séat, then Chairman and CEO of Calmann-Lévy, who appointed him Editorial Director.

At Calmann-Lévy, he published non-fiction authors such as Antony Beevor, Françoise Rudetzki, Jean-Marie Cavada, Stephen Smith, and a steady stream of books on what was then a budding theme in French publishing – the environment, with works by such luminaries as Nicolas Hulot, Jean-Marc Jeancovici, Charles Patterson and Lester Brown.

He also launched the imprint Memorial de la Shoah, a series of books on the Holocaust, edited by Georges Bensoussan.

In 2007, The Chairman and CEO of Hachette Livre, Arnaud Nourry, made an offer Ronald couldn’t refuse,i.e. to merge his two areas of expertise by joining Hachette Livre as Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications. Ronald held that position from 2007 till 2019. He was subsequently and advisor to the Chairman and CEO until 2021.

He loves old Mercedes-Benzes, antiquarian books, wood sculpture and cigars.

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→ ronald@lesnouveauxediteurs.com