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The Assembly of Allies

Click here to see the list of Alliance member publishers

Governance diagram

Language network co-ordinators

To facilitate communication between the Alliance’s language networks, set up as “one of the Alliance’s working practices” pursuant to a decision adopted in Dakar, each language network has a co-ordinator (elected by their particular network). The role of the network co-ordinators is: to check that their network members and members of the Paris team receive all relevant information; to liaise with the Paris team; to monitor the progress of projects that the network wants to carry out (co-publishing, sharing of expertise); to examine and give an opinion on applications to join their network and to liaise with the Paris team to organise network meetings. The language network co-ordinators have been members of the International Committee of Independent Publishers (ICIP) since March 2011.

Presentation of the Alliance’s language network coordinators:

* Nouri Abid, Tunisia (Med Ali), coordinator of Arabic-language network;

* Araken Gomes Ribeiro, Brazil (Contra Capa), coordinator of Portuguese-language network;

* Susan Hawthorne, Australia (Spinifex Press), coordinator of English-language network;

* Juan Carlos Saez, Chile (EDIN), coordinator of Spanish-language network;

* Serge D. Kouam, Cameroon (Presses universitaires d’Afrique), coordinator of French-language network.

International Committee of Independent Publishers (ICIP)

In accordance with the decisions taken at the International Assembly of Independent Publishers in July 2007, the language network co-ordinators and the Board of the Alliance have been meeting once a year since 2009. On 11 October 2010, the coordinators and the Board put forward to the Alliance’s members a proposal for the creation of the International Committee of Independent Publishers (ICIP). The ICIP, comprising the Alliance’s language network co-ordinators, represents publishers to the organisation’s legal authorities (the Board and the AGM); it acts as their spokesperson, thereby enabling the Board and the Alliance’s permanent employees to adapt the organisation’s guidelines and the implementation of these better to meet publishers’ needs. The purpose of the ICIP is thus to safeguard the legitimacy of the organisation (see the governance organisational chart above). Where it deems it necessary, the ICIP may invite correspondents from linguistic or geographical areas not represented (or under-represented) within the Alliance to elucidate and provide specific expertise on a given issue. After consulting all members on the proposed committee in March 2011, the ICIP was approved by the majority of the Alliance’s publishers (see the Press release of March 2011).

Thierry QUINQUETON

Chairman

Thierry Quinqueton has a long experience of the publishing world and of intercultural dialogue. He was Literary Director at the Desclée de Brouwer publishing house (France) from 1991 to 1999, and then Director of the French Cultural Center in Khartoum from 2000 to 2004. After spending four years at the French Department of Foreign Affairs (department of written documents and libraries), he has been in charge since 2009 of the libraries network in the Châtellerault area. Thierry Quinqueton also pursues his research on the links between market economy, public policies and non-monetary aspects in the book economy. He has been Chairman of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers since 2006.

Luc PINHAS

Luc Pinhas is Board Secretary of the Alliance. A former student of the École normale supérieure in Saint-Cloud, he holds a PhD in Communication studies and teaches at Paris 13-Villetaneuse University. He is currently Assistant Director of the Communication studies Department and co-manages a masters’ degree on “Book marketing”.

Gérard AIMÉ

Born in 1946, after obtaining a degree from the Centre de Formation des Journalistes and a postgraduate qualification in political sociology, Gérard Aimé started his career as a journalist and photo-reporter in Canada. The joint founder of Alternatives publishing house and co-author of its first publications, he ran the publishing house for 35 years until its takeover by Gallimard. Today he works as a consultant for various publishing houses.

Annie GOGAT

Treasurer of the Alliance since its inception, Annie Gogat works for the Charles Léopold Mayer as Accounting Manager. As she is very fond of integration issues and involved in her neighborhood’s school life, she finds herself naturally acting as a mediator in many situations. After spending years in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, she now lives in Bouffémont (Paris region).

Édith SIZOO

Born in the Netherlands, Édith Sizoo likes to define herself as a “World citizen”. She is a sociolinguist and has worked for the “Cultures and Development” network as International Coordinator. After 10 years in Asia and 27 in the Netherlands, she now lives and works in France, particularly on the collective drafting of a Charter of human responsibilities. She has written several books, including “Par-delà le féminisme” (Beyond Feminism) and “Ce que les mots ne disent pas”, published by Charles Léopold Mayer.

Hélène KLOECKNER

Hélène Kloeckner has worked in the the publishing field for twelve years, and is currently editorial assistant at Calmann-Lévy Publishing. Author of an investigation into school books in Subsaharan African francophone countries, which appeared in the review Africultures in 2003, she has worked at New African Publishing of Senegal (NEAS) in Dakar. A voluntary worker for the Alliance since 2004, she has had a particular interest in Pan-African co-publishing of the “Terres solidaires” collection. Since 2011 she has been in charge of the development of the Equality Laboratory (Laboratoire de l’Égalité).

Introducing the executive team

Laurence HUGUES

After studying at the IUT Book Trade in Aix-en-Provence, Laurence Hugues went on to a bachelor’s degree in Literature at Trois-Rivières University in Québec, and later to a Masters’ degree in Publishing trade at Paris 13-Villetaneuse University. After several professionals stays in West Africa, she joined the International Alliance of Independent Publishers’ team in 2007. In July 2009, Etienne GALLIAND passed on management charges to Laurence HUGUES.

Clémence HEDDE

After geography studies, Clémence has done a Master specialised in book publishing and several internships in publishing houses (Autrement, La Découverte and Phaidon). Her Master dissertation was about « International co-publishing. Practices, policies and strategies ».