Edelweiss Welcomes Linda Duggins as VP of Strategic Partnerships
Edelweiss by Above the Treeline announced today that Linda A. Duggins will be joining their senior leadership team as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships. In this role, Duggins will develop and implement an innovative, comprehensive partnership strategy that includes publishing houses, book professionals, industry organizations, and other community partners.
“We feel so fortunate to have Linda join our team. She’s clearly very passionate about supporting and improving our book industry. With her skills, network, and experience, Linda’s the perfect person to help us implement a comprehensive partnership strategy that will benefit not only our company but our clients and users as well,” stated John Rubin, Founder & CEO of Edelweiss by Above the Treeline.
Duggins feels strongly that literature, the arts, community engagement, and reading are crucial elements to making the world a better place. She has been involved in the publishing industry for over 25 years - twenty of those years at Grand Central Publishing (an imprint of Hachette Book Group) as a publicist. Most recently, Duggins was the Senior Director of Publicity and Director of Multicultural Publicity and worked on campaigns for multiple genres. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Misty Copeland, Leesa Cross-Smith, and Jane Goodall are a few of the authors she worked with at GCP. Linda also worked as a Senior Publicist at Warner Books, co-founded the Harlem Book Fair, and was the Marketing Manager at The Black Book Review. Duggins serves on the Board of Directors for the National Book Club Conference, whose mission is to advance literacy and knowledge through reading and dialogue. A native New Yorker, Duggins is also the President of the Board of Directors of the Queensbridge Scholarship Fund where she helps to facilitate continuing education for full-time college students who are residents of Queensbridge and Ravenswood Houses in NYC. A graduate of Hostra University, Duggins also has an MBA from Metropolitan College of New York.
Duggins’ new role will be focused on forging partnerships across the publishing industry that provide insight into product and marketing strategy as well as support the company’s cross-functional focus on dismantling barriers, providing opportunities, and creating inclusive and equitable spaces. Since August 2020, Duggins has served as the Chair of Edelweiss’ Treeline 2020 Advisory Council. Treeline 2020 reflects the organization’s commitment to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech and publishing industries, and it is embedded in the company’s mission, mindset, and solutions. The vision of Treeline 2020 is to drive positive social impact by fostering community and working to dismantle systemic racism and bias against LGBTQ+ communities. Since Treeline 2020’s conception, Duggins was instrumental in recruiting a strong group of advisors and helping Edelweiss identify ways to address the lack of diversity in the book industry.
“Working with Linda on Treeline 2020, we were so impressed by her collaborative nature and wide-ranging talents. It became obvious that having her on our team would not only make us a better organization, but it would also enable us to succeed in creating real, lasting change in the industry. She knows this industry so well, and her insights will help us grow and meet our clients’ needs in new ways. Linda is also just as passionate about DEI in the publishing industry as we are. We know that a more diverse community will make us a better, stronger community, but it will require commitment and a systematic approach to achieve it. We’re excited to have Linda oversee Treeline 2020 Books and play a key leadership role in our organization,” stated Annie Rubin, President of Edelweiss by Above the Treeline.
“Stepping into this new role is a convergence of so many things that I am passionate about. What we’ll accomplish in the publishing industry will be revolutionary. I’m excited to work with this amazing team of people and shake up our beloved publishing industry in fantastic ways,” stated Linda Duggins.
About Edelweiss by Above the Treeline
Edelweiss by Above the Treeline empowers the book publishing industry with marketing, sales, and business intelligence tools that make the journey from author to reader more efficient. Over 175,000 book professionals engage in the community and utilize the platform to discover titles and manage the processes that keep them competitive. The company is privately owned since 2002 and based in Ann Arbor, MI. For more information, visit http://www.abovethetreeline.com.