Nellie McKesson

Nellie McKesson has a diverse work experience in the publishing industry spanning over 16 years. Nellie has worked with both established publishing houses and new start-ups. Nellie is the Founder and CEO of Hederis, where they created a single-source publishing tool to help publishers improve their speed to market and increase their front-lists. Nellie is also an Adjunct Professor at Pace University, teaching the "E-Books: Technology, Workflow, and Business Model" course. Nellie has worked as a Solutions Architect for Gutenberg Technology, where they advised on EPUB standards and assisted publishers in rethinking their workflows for faster speed-to-market and future-proof file formats. Previously, they worked as a Software Developer at Marmoset, where they maintained and improved a Rails + React tech stack. Nellie has also worked with O'Reilly Media as an eBook Operations Manager, Digital Development Manager, and Production Specialist, where they managed the internal tooling team, participated in the planning and development of the Atlas system and collaborated on new ways to present digital-first content and create integrated learning experiences. Before that, they worked as the Senior Manager for Content Workflows at Macmillan, where they evaluated internal book production and distribution processes, designed and implemented tools to improve workflow efficiency and reduce cost while maintaining final product quality. Nellie also automated the book production toolchain from scratch to create EPUB and print-ready PDF files from Microsoft Word manuscripts. Nellie was an Invited Expert with the W3C EPUB Working Group. Nellie started their career as a Production Coordinator at the International Press of Boston. Throughout their career, they have guided junior developers in troubleshooting, code best practices, and user-focused problem solving, reducing tech debt and improving data-driven decision making.

Nellie McKesson obtained their BA degree in Philosophy from St. John's College from 2000 to 2004. Later, from 2009 to 2011, they studied Graphic Design at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, but it is unclear whether or not they obtained a degree.