Educational Publisher Cengage Promotes New GC From Within
For the past nearly four years, Laura Stevens has served as senior vice president and deputy general counsel at the Boston-based company. In addition to being promoted to executive VP and GC, Stevens also will serve on Cengage's executive team.
May 25, 2018 at 12:38 PM
3 minute read
A long-time in-house attorney at educational publisher Cengage has been promoted to top lawyer.
Laura Stevens was named executive vice president and general counsel, the Boston-based company announced Thursday. For almost four years, Stevens has served as SVP and deputy GC, according to her LinkedIn profile. In her new role, she also will serve on the company's executive team.
She could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
Cengage is an educational publisher transitioning from a traditional publisher of textbooks to a creator of digital content.
The majority of Cengage's revenue is generated in the higher-education space, though it is also active in the K-12, professional and library markets, then-GC Ken Carson said in a August 2015 National Law Journal profile. At that time, the company employed about 5,000 workers in 40 countries and had an 11-attorney legal department, he added.
A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request for information about whom Stevens is succeeding in the role and what the reason might be for that lawyer's exit. Carson's LinkedIn profile still has him listed as Cengage's GC.
In her most recent role at Cengage, Stevens established the company's privacy office, according to the company statement announcing her appointment. She continues to be extensively involved in legal efforts to implement industrywide anti-piracy practices, it added.
In recent years, Cengage joined with several other major publishers in forming what's called the Educational Publishers Enforcement Group in hopes of raising awareness about counterfeit books. The group's “anti-counterfeit best practices” developed last year have since been adopted by textbook distributors Chegg Inc., Ingram Book Group, Barnes & Noble Education and MBS Textbook Exchange.
Last June, Cengage, along with Pearson Education Inc. and McGraw-Hill Education, also brought a copyright and trademark-infringement lawsuit against a major textbook distributor. The suit pointed out the detrimental and widespread impact of counterfeit textbooks.
Such efforts “have resulted in a double-digit decrease in counterfeit texts among some of [Cengage's] largest distributors,” the company said in Stevens' promotion announcement.
Stevens joined Cengage (then Thomson Reuters) as publishing counsel in 2003 and served as assistant GC for intellectual property for seven years before assuming the SVP and deputy GC role in 2014.
“Among the many impressive highlights of Laura's career here at Cengage are her forward-thinking efforts to realign our intellectual property licensing function to enable the Cengage Unlimited model, the industry's first-of-its kind subscription service,” Cengage CEO Michael Hansen said in the statement.
Prior to going in-house, Stevens was an attorney at Thacher Proffitt & Wood and later Brown Raysman, according to her LinkedIn profile.
She holds a degree from Columbia Law School.
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