Maja Thomas (she/her)

Maja Thomas is the Chief Innovation Officer of Hachette Livre, and the Director of the Hachette Business Development and Innovation Program, focusing on the intersection of publishing and digital innovation.

Hachette Livre is the 3rd largest consumer book publisher in the world, publishing over 17,000 titles annually, in both trade and education markets. They are headquartered in Paris and have offices in the UK, Spain, Mexico, and the United States.

Maja works internationally across divisions and sectors, facilitating collaboration with start-ups and established global players, to get books into the hands, phones, and ears of readers. The team she leads aims to accelerate digital transformation by creating experiments with augmented reality, tap to read interfaces, social messaging platforms, bots, voice assistants, and the metaverse. Her team also uses the design thinking process to help publishers be more reader and consumer centric, and they pilot projects that find novel uses for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data in publishing.

Earlier in her career she operated as an intrapreneurial executive, managing teams that created award-winning audiobooks, ebooks, and applications. During a period of dizzying transformation, Maja helped publishers navigate new territory, leading business development and strategy, and negotiating innovative partnerships with global players such as Google, Amazon, and Apple.

She has won six Grammys as a producer and director in the Spoken Word category for Adults and Children, and for Poetry and Comedy.