ABA Names Joy Dallanegra-Sanger as Senior Program Officer

On Thursday, November 10, the American Booksellers Association announced that Joy Dallanegra-Sanger was joining the association as senior program officer, a newly created senior executive position.

Dallanegra-Sanger is a long-time industry professional, whose experience includes 15 years in publishing and 13 years in book retailing. Most recently, she was senior vice president and director of marketing for Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, and, before that, Dallanegra-Sanger held senior positions at Random House, including vice president and director of field sales for Random House Children’s Books and vice president and associate publisher, trade paperbacks for Doubleday/Broadway Publishing Group. In addition, she held a number of positions at Waldenbooks with responsibilities that included merchandising, marketing, and buying.

“We could not be more excited that Joy will be joining ABA,” said Oren Teicher, ABA CEO. “I have no doubt that her considerable and wide-ranging industry experience — which includes extensive interaction with our bookstore members — will help ABA focus on areas of particular and immediate importance to indie booksellers, especially in advancing our ongoing discussions regarding new business models and in helping to promote children’s bookselling.”

Dallanegra-Sanger told BTW that “joining ABA provides the exciting opportunity to use my experience of almost 30 years in bookselling and publishing on behalf of independent booksellers at a pivotal moment in bricks-and-mortar retailing. Indie bookstores are a critical part of the publishing process, no matter what format they are selling. They are more than a showcase; they are an essential component of our communities, where readers can gather to discover authors, stories, ideas, and information. I very much look forward to working with ABA member booksellers and our publishing partners to find new ways to keep independent bookstores a strong part of our future.”

Teicher noted that he used the unexpected departure of former ABA COO Len Vlahos as an opportunity to examine ABA’s staff structure, and he said that the creation of this new position is intended to help the association better serve its members in a time of significant change.

After Monday, November 28, Dallanegra-Sanger can be reached at ABA at [email protected].