Gail Rebuck Explained

Honorific Prefix:The Right Honourable
The Baroness Rebuck
Honorific-Suffix:DBE
Birth Name:Gail Ruth Rebuck
Birth Date:1952 2, df=yes
Office:Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Status:Life Peerage
Term Start:18 September 2014
Education:Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle
Occupation:Publisher
Children:2, including Georgia Gould
Alma Mater:University of Sussex (BA)
Party:Labour

Gail Ruth Rebuck, Baroness Rebuck (born 10 February 1952) is a British publisher and Chair of Penguin Random House UK.[1] She has served as a Labour member of the House of Lords since 2014.

Early life and education

Rebuck's Latvian-born Jewish grandfather, and her own father, were both in the London rag trade. Her mother was a Dutch Jew.[2]

At the age of four she was sent to the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, London, where she learned to read and write in French before she did in English.[3] She graduated with a degree in intellectual history from Sussex University in 1974.[4]

Career

Rebuck worked for several independent publishers and ran a paperback imprint for Hamlyn, before putting her own funds into a new imprint, Century. After a merger with Hutchinson in 1985, Century Hutchinson was taken over by Random House UK in 1989. Rebuck was appointed chair and chief executive of Random House UK in 1991.[4]

Rebuck was fifth in a 2006 Observer list of the top people in the British books industry,[5] and at ninth place in a 2011 Guardian version of the list.[6] In February 2013, she was assessed as the tenth most powerful woman in the UK by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.[7] She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2013.[8]

In February 2015, Rebuck succeeded Sir Neil Cossons as pro-provost and chair of council (the governing body) at the Royal College of Art (RCA); she joined the RCA council in 1999.[9]

Personal life

She was married to Philip Gould, until his death in November 2011. They had two daughters: Georgia Gould, who currently serves as the MP for Queen's Park and Maida Vale (UK Parliament constituency), and Grace Gould.[10]

Honours

Rebuck was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours,[4] and promoted to Dame Commander of the same Order (DBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.[11]

In 2014, it was announced that Rebuck was to become a Labour peer in the House of Lords, following in the footsteps of her late husband. She was created a life peer on 18 September 2014, taking the title Baroness Rebuck, of Bloomsbury in the London Borough of Camden.

Notes and References

  1. Gail Rebuck works at PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LIMITED since 1 July 2013 currently as a Director (PUBLISHER) http://www.cbetta.com/director/gail-rebuck-4
  2. Web site: 1998-04-04. Interview; Gail warning. 2020-09-21. The Independent. en.
  3. Boyd Tonkin, "Gail Rebuck: Power behind the prose", The Independent, 4 September 2010.
  4. Web site: Best of British Industry Awards - Gail Rebuck . 28 September 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110911064052/http://www.britishindustryawards.co.uk/index.asp?PageID=35 . 11 September 2011 . dead .
  5. [Robert McCrum]
  6. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/23/gail-rebuck-books-power-100 Books Power 100: Gail Rebuck #9
  7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qlvb/features/power-list-100 "The Power List 2013"
  8. News: 2013-10-20 . 100 Women: Who took part? . en-GB . BBC News . 2022-12-18.
  9. Web site: New Chair of Council at the Royal College of Art. 18 June 2015.
  10. News: Tim Adams . Philip Gould: a good life and death | Politics . The Guardian . 28 April 2012. 23 June 2017.
  11. Graham Ruddick, "Random House boss Gail Rebuck leads Queen's birthday honours for financial world", The Daily Telegraph, 13 June 2009.