L-R Charles Chase, Stephen White, Sylvia May & Dr. P. Ngully during the an informal interaction with British publishing Executives at Hotel Japfü Kohima held on April 8. (Morung Photo)
Morung Express News
Kohima | April 8
The Kohima Educational Society (KES) today organized an informal interaction with British publishing Executives at Hotel Japfü Kohima as part of the commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the battle of Kohima. Nagaland based publishers including Heritage Publishing House and PenThrill Publication House along with the e-commerce website- www.ilandlo.com, TV production house- Highland Dawn Media, Book seller such as Bible House, and members of Kohima Press Club were part of the meeting.
The two British publishing executives were Stephen White, who, after graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in history in 1972, worked for CBS, McGraw-Hill and the Thomson Corporation in various management roles in educational and professional book and journals publishing. In 2000, he led a management huy-in of the media monitoring company Durrants which was sold to Exponent Private Equity in 2006. Steve remains on the board of Durrants now renamed Gorkana as a non-executive Director. He is also a director of the publishing companies Kogan Page, WARC and Infinite Ideas, and chairman of the UK Media Monitoring Association.
Sylvia May was born in New Jersey, USA, in 1957 and moved to England in 1963. After education, she decided to pursue a career in the world of books and has worked for Harper Collins for 37 years, the last 11 of which she headed up their UK-based international Sales Team. She left the Company in 2013 in order to be able to focus on Kohima Educational Trust (KET) and to work for with Gordon Graham, her father and honorary founder-president of the KET.
In Sylvia’s words, she “is proud that her father has inspired many people to share his vision to commemorate those who fought and died in Kohima and the wonderful Naga people who have done so much for the British in the past”. She first visited Kohima in 1944 with husband Robert May and has since visited Nagaland several times. In the year 2000, she and her husband traversed the entire WWII battle route of her father and his Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders which regiments main engagement was in the battle of Kohima.
The highlights of the meeting included sharing of experiences in the publishing field by both the local publishing houses and the British publishing Executives wherein challenges in marketing of books were also discussed. Apart from these, media related subjects were also deliberated upon.
