Ana María Cabanellas began her career as a lawyer and notary before founding the family–owned publishing company of law books Editorial Heliasta as a partner. In 1979, Ms Cabanellas became President of Editorial Claridad, which specializes in dictionaries, as well as fiction, philosophy and history. In 2006, Ms Cabanellas founded UnaLuna, which publishes children’s books and in 2018 Tobogán that publishes children activity books.

Ms Cabanellas has been extremely active in industry associations as President of CADRA (Argentina’s RRO), President of the Cámara Argentina del Libro, President of GIE, and President of IPA from 2004–2008. She still works with these associations.

Karine Pansa is the VIce President and President-elect of the International Publishers Association as well as Publishing Director of Girassol Brasil Edições, a 22 year old Children’s Book Publisher in Brazil. Karine has been in the publishing industry for almost 29 years, holding a number of roles within the industry in Brazil, including two terms as President of the Brazilian Book Chamber and seats on the boards of the National Book and Reading Plan and the Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind. 

Laura Brady, co-chair of IPA’s Accessibility Subcommittee and Accessible Books Consortium board member, is an inclusive publishing expert whose priority is always to put users first. She has more than 25 years of trade publishing experience, working in digital publishing for the past fifteen years, creating and converting ebooks, training publishers on accessible workflows, writing a blog helping developers work more accessibly, and consulting for services organizations about how to publish inclusively.

Rachel Martin is the Global Director of Sustainability at Elsevier. Previously chief of staff to IPA President, Michiel Kolman, she is now driving transformational change in the priority areas of sustainability with a focus on climate action. In 2020, this resulted in the launch of the Elsevier report The Power of Data to Advance the SDGs. Rachel is also part of the team that launched the UN Sustainable Development Goals Publishers Compact, and she represents Elsevier on several industry sustainability committees. She is based in Amsterdam.

Alison Tweed is Chief Executive of Book Aid International. She leads the charity, working closely with the Board of Trustees which is chaired by Lord Boateng. Alison is responsible for the organisation’s strategy and development. She worked for 25 years in publishing materials for developing world markets and has extensive knowledge of the African education sector. Since joining the charity, she has grown its book provision to over one million books and launched a range of new, innovative programmes.

Pedro Sobral is the General Manager of Grupo Leya in Portugal. He is an IPA Executive Committee member and leads the statistics working group in the Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee.

Gvantsa Jobava is the past President of the Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association (GBPA) and currently a board member. She sits on the IPA's Executive Committee and leads the Literacy Taskforce in the IPA's Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee. 

Anne Bergman-Tahon is the Director of the Federation of European Publishers

@AnneBergman 

IPA President 2017-2018, Dr Michiel Kolman, was appointed as IPA's Special Envoy for Diversity and Inclusion in January 2019. At Elsevier he is Senior Vice President of Information Industry Relations.

José was appointed Secretary General in September 2015, having joined IPA as Policy Director in March 2013. He came to the IPA from the Australian Publishers Association where he served as Manager of Industry Representation. His previous professional roles include lecturer in journalism and creative industries at the University of Sydney, editor of the online news magazine NewMatilda.com, executive director of the Australian Society of Authors, and senior positions at the Literature Board of the Australia Council. 

Guest blogger, Iman Ben Chaibah is the founder of Sail Publishing, an Emirati digital publishing house. She is also the editor in chief of Sail Magazine, a general interest online magazine about community and culture. Iman is a multi award winner in digital publishing, entrepreneurship, and literature. She has also completed the Magazine Media Course in Yale University and is a Rosalynn Carter Fellow. Connect with her on twitter @ImanBenChaibah

Bodour Al Qasimi is the CEO and Founder of Kalimat Group, UAE. She is also the President of the Emirates Publishers Association and a member of the IPA Executive Committee.

Jessica Sänger is Legal Counsel and Director of European & International Affairs, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels and is also a member of the IPA's Freedom to Publish Committee.

William Bowes is Director of Policy and General Counsel at the Publishers Association, the trade association representing book, journal, audio and electronic publishers in the UK. In this role, William is responsible for the Policy, Legal, Research and Public Affairs output and leads all interactions with Government and Regulators both in the UK and other countries. William is a qualified lawyer with a particular specialism in copyright. After qualifying and working in private practice, he subsequently worked as an in house counsel for Publishers covering the full range of consumer, professional and scholarly publishing including most recently serving as the General Counsel for the world’s oldest publisher, Cambridge University Press. He is a regular writer and speaker on issues relating to copyright and the role of Publishing in society with recent talks taking place in Oxford, Cambridge, London, Frankfurt and New Delhi.

Hugh Stephens has more than 35 years of government and business experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, he is Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Vice Chair of the Canadian National Committee on Pacific Economic Cooperation (PECC) and Executive Fellow at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary. He also teaches in the MBA program at the School of Business at Royal Roads University, Victoria. Before returning to Canada in 2010, he was SVP (Public Policy) for Asia-Pacific for Time Warner, based in Hong Kong, after a career of 30 years in the Canadian Foreign Service. While with Foreign Affairs, Mr. Stephens served as Assistant Deputy Minister for Policy and Communications, and served at six Canadian missions in Asia including as Canadian Representative in Taiwan. He has written extensively on Asia Pacific trade and investment issues, and on intellectual property topics, and has commented frequently in the Canadian media. He writes a weekly blog on international copyright issues under the title www.hughstephensblog.net.

Azadeh Parsapour is a publisher, copy-editor and journalist. She has worked in different publications as a copy-editor for years back in Iran. She moved to the UK in 2010 and studied journalism in London Metropolitan University.

She is the managing editor of Nogaam e-Publishing that launched in December 2012 in London. Nogaam Publishing uses crowdfunding to publish Iranian censored authors. Nogaam supports and empowers Iranian authors, advocates freedom of speech, promotes Farsi-language digital publishing and provides easy access to invaluable Farsi books.

Parsapour is also the founder of Tehran Book Fair, Uncensored which is an annual book fair for Persian books published outside of Iran by independent publishers free of censorship.

James Taylor joined the IPA As Director of Communications and Freedom to Publish in January 2018.

Prior to joining the IPA in Geneva, James was based in Brussels where he looked after communications and public affairs at the Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA), the European grouping of collective management organisations for screenwriters and directors. He started his career in Brussels dealing with communication and membership services at the Independent Music Companies Association, IMPALA.

Hugo Setzer is the CEO of Mexican publishing house Manual Moderno, and the immediate past-President of the IPA. He leads the accessibility taskforce in the IPA's Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee.

Ben Steward is the Chief of Staff to IPA Vice President, Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi. He was previously the IPA's Director of Communications and Freedom to Publish and Communications Manager at DCAF, the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance.