Jonathan Karp

Jonathan Karp became President and Chief Executive Officer of Simon & Schuster, Inc. in May 2020. In this role, he is responsible for all the publishing and operations of Simon & Schuster’s numerous publishing groups as well as its international companies in Australia, Canada, India and the United Kingdom.

Previously, Karp served as President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, encompassing the company’s New York–based adult trade publishing: Atria Books, Gallery Books, Scribner, Simon & Schuster, and their associated sub-imprints and lines. During his tenure, the adult group launched a successful new imprint, Avid Reader Press, and established the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau as an in-house lecture service.

He was named Publisher of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint in June 2010. During his tenure, he oversaw the publication of bestselling authors such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Irving, Walter Isaacson, David McCullough, Susan Orlean, and Bob Woodward, while launching acclaimed books by Jonah Berger, Bill Browder, Rinker Buck, Lisa Halliday, Chip and Dan Heath, Adam Higginbotham, Siri Hustvedt, Saeed Jones, Naomi Klein, Jessica Knoll, Samin Nosrat, Vaddey Ratner, Matthew Thomas and Rebecca Traister. Other notable authors and cultural figures brought to the imprint’s list during Karp’s tenure include Tom Brady, Stephen Colbert, Ray Dalio, Clive Davis, Nelson DeMille, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Brian Grazer, Sam Lipsyte, Gucci Mane, Chris Matthews, John McCain, Martha Nussbaum, Jerry Seinfeld, Bruce Springsteen, Howard Stern, Andrew Sullivan, and Herman Wouk.

Among the highlights of Karp’s ten years as publisher were the publication of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, What Happened by Hillary Clinton, Fear by Bob Woodward, Frederick Douglass by David Blight (winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History), Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen, In One Person by John Irving, The Library Book by Susan Orlean, and the launch of Mobituaries by Mo Rocca, an acclaimed book and podcast co-produced with CBS Sunday Morning.

Prior to joining Simon & Schuster, Karp was Publisher and Editor in Chief of Twelve, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, which he founded in 2005. At Twelve, Karp published numerous highly-acclaimed bestselling works, including True Compass by the late Edward M. Kennedy, God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley, Columbine by Dave Cullen, Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, and War by Sebastian Junger.

Prior to founding Twelve, Karp was Editor in Chief of Random House, where he began his publishing career in 1989 as an editorial assistant and worked for sixteen years. At Random House, Karp acquired and edited an eclectic and diverse list of bestselling fiction and nonfiction titles including Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson, Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley, Faith of My Fathers by John McCain and Mark Salter, Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham, The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, The Last Don by Mario Puzo and The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl.

He has also edited fiction by Steven Bochco, Elizabeth Frank, Eric Garcia, Neil Gordon, Rupert Holmes, C.J. Hribal, David Ignatius, David Liss, and Mark Winegardner; and works of nonfiction by Alan Alda, Henry Alford, Marcia Angell, Sally Bedell Smith, Buzz Bissinger, Alex Berenson, Joel Glenn Brenner, Vicki Constantine Croke, Gregg Easterbrook, David Frum, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, John Harris, Gary Hart, Miles Harvey, Constance Hays, Donald Katz, David Kushner, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Eric Liu, Jeffrey Rosen, David Plotz, Kenneth Pollack, Gary Rivlin, Jim Rogers, Ron Rosenbaum, Jonathan Schwartz, Billy Shore, Carol Spinney, Mike Stanton, Donna Summer, Kara Swisher, John Taylor, Andrew Tobias, Donald Trump, Paul Wellstone, Juan Williams, Michael J. Wolf, and Mitchell Zuckoff.

Karp earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University and his Master of Arts degree from New York University. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The American Scholar, and The Washington Post and contributed a chapter to What Editors Do: The Art Craft & Business of Book Editing (The University of Chicago Press). He also wrote the book and lyrics to a musical, How to Save the World and Find True Love in 90 Minutes, which premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival and had a brief Off-Broadway run.