Harvest House Publishers announced Friday a new alignment of two publishing groups in the company: The Willamette Group and The McKenzie Group. These teams position Harvest House to better serve its authors, accounts and readers through category expertise, consumer focus and marketing innovation.

Each group, named after the two major rivers in the Eugene, Oregon, area (where Harvest House is based), has been tasked with developing specific brands and categories. The Willamette Group, led by 30-year Harvest House veteran, executive vice president and publisher LaRae Weikert, focuses on titles for women, pastoral voices, prophecy, leadership, ministry partnerships and more. The McKenzie Group, led by executive vice president and publisher Barb Sherrill, primarily focuses on titles for kids, teens and tweens, parents, lifestyle (home, personal interests and health) and fiction.

Weikert commented on the realignment.

“This new initiative brings intentionality and agility to our publishing program,” Weikert said. “We’re creating better and stronger communication among the editorial, marketing and sales processes that will both greatly benefit our content and enhance our distribution while giving us the ability to respond more quickly to consumer needs.”

Each team is made up of editorial and marketing personnel, creating a synergy between the products that are acquired and developed and the marketing that follows.

Sherrill, newly promoted to her position, said she was optimistic about the new arrangement.

“We’re excited to have such a close connection between product development and marketing,” Sherrill said. “By using the editorial and marketing mindsets in unison from the get-go instead of downline from each other, we’ll be giving our content its best opportunity to succeed in this crowded and noisy marketplace.”

Other new promotions and positions have resulted from the realignment. Notably, Heather Green, an employee for 11 years, has been promoted to director/category management for The McKenzie Group. Harvest House is also looking to expand its teams through hiring a director in category management for The Willamette Group and two acquisitions editors for The McKenzie Group.

Bob Hawkins Jr., president of Harvest House, said the realignment would set the company on the right path moving forward.

“This new alignment brings us to the culmination of the strategic corporate changes we started making earlier in 2015,” Hawkins said. “Our publishing groups are now set up to keep Harvest House strong, on the offensive and in a growth mode as we acquire, produce, market and sell books that proclaim Jesus Christ as the answer to every human need—a message our world desperately needs to hear.”

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