Lee Newman

Lee Newman speaks to us candidly about class, imposter syndrome and how we’re all part of the solution to barriers in publishing.

Lee Newman has twenty years’ experience in educational publishing. As Educational Publisher, Lee has overarching strategic responsibility for all of HarperCollins UK’s education publishing, covering acquisition and product development for all learning phases. In practice this entails overseeing development, delivery and commercial performance of all products and services across primary, secondary, international, ELT, revision and home learning. Lee is also Chair of Governors at a North Herts primary school and as a non-executive director of HFL Education. 

Janet Aspey is a marketing manager at HQ. She is an award-winning marketer with ten years’ experience in the industry with an MA in Creative Writing and an MA in Publishing. Together they co-founded and co-chair The Social Mobility Employee Network at HarperCollins, set up to support colleagues from a working class background as well as champion wider diversity within the industry.

‘My motto is always, ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’… It’s absolute candour and honesty that helps you to advocate for yourself.’

Your career progression from PA & stock controller to Education Publisher has all taken place in the same company and division. What was that journey like?

I started at Collins straight from university. I'd worked in a bookshop and was looking for an editorial role but my route in was through production and inventory control. After that, I was working on the Big Cat primary school reading series; the launch phase of that programme was 100 titles and I was project managing 30 of them. Even though they're short books, every one has a separate author and illustrator, so I essentially got 30 books’ worth of experience in less than a year. It was hugely intense but so exciting and it just catapulted me in terms of my editorial experience. After that, I worked through every educational editorial role, moving through primary and secondary and across different subjects. The role I’m in now was new to the division.

And throughout these roles, how did you advocate for yourself in a way that led you to where you are now?

I've always been clear about what I'm interested in and what responsibilities and roles I wanted, but equally what I thought I could contribute to the organisation and where I could add value. My motto is always, ‘If you don't ask, you don't get’, which was instilled in me from a young age. My dad would say, ‘You have to look out for you. Nobody else is going to do it.’ I think it also comes from trying to get into Oxford from a state school: you had to go above and beyond, so I remember submitting extra essays that weren't asked for, to stand out. 

When I first started working in publishing, the agency had appointed me on a salary I couldn't afford to live on. I couldn't commute into London and pay my rent, so I had to admit early on that I couldn’t make this work unless I got a pay rise. It was just necessity that led me to advocate for myself. At that stage I wanted the job more than HarperCollins needed me, so I had to be really honest and say ‘I know I've not yet proved myself or made that much of an impression, but I really want to stay. I don't want finance to be the reason I drop out of publishing and drop out of London.’ Luckily my manager and first mentor, Linden Harris, saw potential in me and was prepared to support  me. I think it's just absolute candour and honesty that help you to advocate for yourself. If you're honest and enthusiastic that comes through. 

‘When we're working on reading books, I always think, ‘What if this is the only book that a child sees this week?’ ’

What do you wish people knew about education publishing and its impact on creating lifelong readers?

I think the level of creativity involved often surprises people. It’s one of these misconceptions both within and outside publishing, because people assume it’s just curriculum, frameworks, reading levels and that it's dry and boring or that we don't have much input into it. The challenge is to hit all of those requirements and work within those frameworks but still engage and inspire children and young learners. You have to view it from the children’s perspective and think what’s going to excite their curiosity or make them laugh. And from the teacher’s perspective: how is this resource going to make their life easier, and give them some time back? 

I’m also painfully aware of how many children in the UK don't own a book of their own; one in five kids don't own their own book. When we're working on reading books, I always think, ‘What if this is the only book that a child sees this week?’ Every book has got to be brilliant. It's a real responsibility, but a privilege. 

When you’re getting books into schools, you can’t put any additional barriers in place. If you've got children reading with their parents who don't have great literacy levels or where English isn't their first language, you have to be mindful of that. Even down to the plot lines in fiction stories: there was one recently that I thought could potentially cast parents who have to work in a bad light, especially in the middle of a cost of living crisis. I could imagine how it would feel to be a parent reading with your child and the gist of the story is that the children are overlooked because they have working parents. At every level, I try to be really conscious of those additional barriers. 

‘Anything that's bound up with the formation of your identity and interlinked with how you developed as a person is emotional to talk about.’

You’ve recently co-created the Social Mobility Employee Network at HarperCollins. What inspired you to set this up?

I was involved in a series of social mobility events that HarperCollins delivered, and they asked me to interview Sam Friedman, the author of The Class Ceiling. Those activities led to conversations and they all pointed towards setting up an employee network. Janet Aspey, my brilliant co-chair, and I set it up together and we've been blown away by the response. It's really early days and we're still establishing our strategy as a group and understanding what's involved in running an employee network, but in the first instance, we’re bringing together a community of staff from working class backgrounds, as well as people who are allies to the cause and interested in social mobility. We’re also inclusive of people who are not from working class backgrounds but who want to see change happen. If it's cultural change and structural change we’re aiming for, we're all involved, so we think it's important to include allies as well.

People have been so honest and open about their backgrounds and experiences. We didn't expect to have that much member input at the first meeting, but we did, which has been fantastic, and we've had so much feedback from people saying that they feel recognised and included and supported. It’s been a really good start. We’re now planning for the year ahead - drafting our strategy as well as looking at what kinds of speakers and events our members would find useful and interesting.

How can publishers encourage open conversations about social mobility, without placing the responsibility on those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds? 

Publishing is for the most part a middle class landscape, and there are fewer working class people in publishing than there are proportionately in society, so you can't necessarily expect those people to identify themselves and instigate that level of cultural change when they might not feel comfortable about bringing their class identity to work in the first place. 

Signalling that this is something you care about as an organisation is a great first step. Knowing the makeup of your staff is really important, and it’s good to make it clear that you will facilitate and support the creation of employee networks if there's interest. It felt weirdly taboo when we first started talking about it, but it's getting easier every time we meet as a group, and reflected back in the wider company communications. 

Anything that's bound up with the formation of your identity and interlinked with how you developed as a person is emotional to talk about. Whether it's your family circumstances, your financial situation or the education you had, conversations get emotional pretty quickly, so I think it's why people prefer to avoid talking about it. We’ve had a handful of people say, ‘I don't know if I should be here’ and share how they’d faced similar issues but were unsure if they met the criteria for the group. Our response is always, ‘You absolutely do belong here’. Your upbringing might have been middle class but you still faced a layer of disadvantage in living outside London and not being able to afford to get into publishing. To be honest, I had misgivings about setting up the network for exactly that reason, because when you look at levels of disadvantage, I thought, ‘I grew up in a leafy garden city, I lived on a council estate, I went to a nice school where none of us had any money really, but I didn't feel like I had a particularly difficult childhood, so am I the right person to be talking about this?’ But actually I don't have to be the worst affected to lead conversations about this. Perhaps it's better if I'm not - maybe I've got a bit more energy to try to improve things if everything hasn't been a constant battle. 

‘Everybody has got to play a part in making publishing culture more accessible.’

Something we really strive to represent at The FLIP is intersectionality. How do you think this ties into social mobility? 

Politically, groups are pitted against each other and you're made to feel that there's only a certain amount of equality to go around. But I think that's the beauty of having separate staff or employee networks. They give you different lenses to view challenges and experiences; once you overlay those, you've got such rich insight. We're meeting with the other networks and it's helpful to talk to people who are members of multiple networks because you’re reminded of the intersect. Factors like social mobility and gender have a multiplicative effect, not an additive effect, so if you're a woman from a working class background, you'll likely be earning less than your male, middle class counterparts, and for every other characteristic you add on, you’re multiplying that disadvantage. I'm really keen to find out what's happening across the networks so that we can collectively combine our experience and make good progress. 

In the instances you’ve just described, what does allyship look like to you? 

Part of the issue in publishing is that class is embodied in behavioural codes: it's built into how you act and interact. It can feel as though everybody is more connected and knows each other more than they actually do. Once you’re in it and you're part of that culture, that's one of the things people love about publishing - it feels very comfy and cosy and like everyone’s having a good time. But if that's not your background, how do you learn that? How do you execute that without making mistakes?

Everybody has got to play a part in making publishing culture more accessible. If somebody comes in from a working class background, and they don't have the same kind of cultural reference points as people in publishing, how do we bring them into the conversation, and how do they become comfortable? And also - how do they not just get in, but how do they get on? Do they progress in their career at the same rate as other people do? To me, allyship starts with being aware that people coming into the industry from a working class background might not have the same cultural reference points and they might value things you might not, and vice versa.

‘ ‘Stop apologising before you speak’. Don’t apologise for talking. You’re negating everything you're about to say before you've even said it. You’re paid to be here to contribute.’

And when it comes to bringing new voices into the conversation, how can managers and people in leadership roles play their part?

You can tell when someone in your team feels they've got something to say, but they don't feel confident to put it forward. You can elicit that from them by inviting them to talk, and if you don't end up agreeing with what they put forward, you can still recognise and value their contribution. I’ve pulled so many people to one side and said, ‘Stop apologising before you speak’. Don’t apologise for talking. You’re negating everything you're about to say before you've even said it. You’re paid to be here to contribute. Once people see that their contributions are welcome, they continue contributing. 

I think apologising is contagious: once one person does it, other people start doing it as well. It’s not good for any of us - people feeling like they don’t belong in the room. I think the concept of imposter syndrome has been invented and ascribed to women. I've been told by middle class, middle-aged mentors that I have impostor syndrome but I don’t. I don't have any doubt about my abilities or my right to be here. What I have done is internalised lots of external signals that are telling me I shouldn't be. That's what holds you back. 

Imposter syndrome describes a set of common experiences, but I feel like we’re just responding to our environments. Especially when you’re a junior woman in an organisation: every time everyone has looked at you to sort the drinks out, or two men have cut in front of you and had a conversation literally over your head, you internalise those minor shocks and jarred feelings. In my experience, that's what I had to get over, not a lack of belief in my own abilities. 

Can you tell us about another woman in publishing who inspires you?

This might sound like a little bit of a cop-out, because obviously there's so many when we're a predominantly female workforce, but I would like to highlight all of the female freelancers I've worked with. On the editorial side of things, you've got editors, proofreaders, designers, permissions, clearance, indexers - a massive legion of people who are predominantly women. In my early career when I was managing large teams of freelance contributors, I learned so much detailed technical knowledge from individuals, who were generous with their time and expertise. They're quite often not credited in books, you don't see them in The Bookseller, but they are the unsung heroes of our industry!