Carolyn Reidy

Carolyn Kroll Reidy (May 2, 1949 – May 12, 2020) was an American business executive who was president and CEO of the American publishing company Simon & Schuster.

While CEO, Reidy was named the publishing industry's Person of the Year by the trade publication Publishers Weekly in 2019.

Early life and education Carolyn Judith Kroll Her dissertation was titled, The reader as character in the High Victorian novel: studies of the reader/writer relationship in Vanity Fair, the Way We Live Now, Middlemarch, and the Egoist. Reidy's doctoral advisor was .

Career Reidy began her career in publishing in 1974 with Random House in the subsidiary rights department, She went on to be publisher and president of Avon Books.

In 1992, she joined Simon & Schuster as president of its Trade Division, then in 2001 became president of the Adult Publishing Group. She was made CEO of the entire publishing house in 2008.

She is known for navigating the company through the Great Recession and for publishing authors such as Doris Kearns Goodwin, David W. Blight, Stephen King, Jennifer Weiner, and Jason Reynolds. She was survived by her husband and three siblings.