Elsevier appoints Judy Verses as President, Academic and Government Markets

Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, is pleased to announce the appointment of Judy Verses to the newly created role of President, Academic and Government Markets. Judy will join Elsevier on May 2, 2022, as a member of the company’s executive leadership team, reporting to Kumsal Bayazit, CEO; she will be based in Amsterdam.

Judy will be responsible for Elsevier’s global strategy for product development, sales, marketing, academic relations and research intelligence solutions to serve the needs of academic researchers, librarians, research leaders, policymakers and funders. She will be instrumental in building on Elsevier’s extensive open access (OA) offerings that include more than 600 gold OA journals, over 2,000 institutions served by transformative deals around the world and some 119,000 OA articles published in 2021. Judy will oversee the company’s broad product portfolio aimed at academic and government customers, including:

• ScienceDirect, the world’s largest platform for peer-reviewed primary scientific and medical research hosting more than 19 million pieces of content from 4,400 journals and 43,000 e-books.
• Scopus, an expertly curated abstract and citation database with content from 27,000+ journals by 7,000+ publishers to help researchers track and discover global knowledge in all fields.
• SciVal, a web-based analytics solution that provides insights into the research performance of over 20,000 academic, industry and government research institutions.
• Pure, a research information management system that enables evidence-based decisions, simplifies research administration, and optimises impact, reporting and compliance.
• Digital Commons, a leading institutional repository that enables universities to share and preserve their community’s research, scholarship, and collections with a range of modules to improve research data management, visibility and impact.

Judy’s career is testament to her belief in the power of knowledge to enable and transform individuals and communities. She has a strong track record of building trust and of being a strong advocate for inclusion and diversity. Most recently, Judy was Executive Vice President, Research, at Wiley, leading the company’s academic journal publishing and platforms businesses. Prior to joining Wiley in 2016, she was President, Global Enterprise & Education at Rosetta Stone, a market leader in online language learning and literacy.  Previously, she had been President and Chief Client Officer at Blackboard, a leading supplier of educational enterprise software where she was accountable for all global marketing and sales and driving the transformation to a customer-centric organization. The earlier part of Judy’s career was in telecommunications with Verizon where she held multiple senior leadership roles in sales, product, and marketing.

Judy Verses commented on her appointment: “I cannot be more excited to join the Elsevier team. In my time in the industry, I have always been impressed with Elsevier’s tremendous portfolio of quality content and data analytics solutions. I look forward to the opportunity to work with an exceptional group of people to delight our customers in the research community and drive towards an open future.”

Kumsal Bayazit, CEO of Elsevier, said: “Judy is a highly respected leader who understands deeply the needs of our customers in the research community. She is passionate about serving librarians, researchers, research leaders, policy makers and funders to advance knowledge and make critical decisions based on quality content and insights. We are delighted to welcome Judy to the Elsevier team at this exciting time as we work together with the communities that we serve to advance openness, inclusion, collaboration and transparency in research.”

This article was first published on 28 April by Elsevier.