Who

Friedman served as the CEO of HarperCollins, the book publishing arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, for more than a decade before stepping down in June '08.

Backstory

The daughter of a graphic artist and a onetime Miss Subway, Long Island native Friedman graduated from NYU before joining Random House as a lowly Dictaphone typist. She soon moved to Knopf's publicity department, where—as she frequently points out four decades later—she invented the author tour, setting Julia Child up on a multi-city cooking-demonstration junket in 1970 to promote Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume II. Stints as Knopf's director of publicity and associate publisher followed before she set up Random House's audio group just as the publication of audio books became a mainstream phenomenon. She later served as publisher of Knopf's trade paperback imprint Vintage, and as Knopf's executive vice president under Sonny Mehta, before the powers that be offered her the top job at HarperCollins, then reeling from a massive reorganization that had resulted in a quarter-billion dollar write-off, the cancellation of over 100 book contracts, and across-the-board layoffs.

Friedman helped HarperCollins weather the restructuring's turbulent aftermath and shepherded the company through a period of anomalously strong sales—profits increased over a thousand percent during her tenure—which is partly why her supposed resignation in the summer of 2008 sent such shockwaves through the industry.

Of note

Book publishing is a notoriously slow-growth (and often money-losing) business, but Friedman aggressively expanded HarperCollins, mostly via acquisitions: She orchestrated the purchase of William Morrow and Avon Books from Hearst in 1999, and went on to acquire several other imprints, including Ecco Press and the African-American-oriented Amistad Press. She also found success with a handful of blockbuster titles, including Rick Warren's unstoppable Christian self-help book The Purpose-Drive Life—now officially the bestselling hardcover in American history. She broadened the company's reach internationally (it recently opened subsidiaries in China and India) and exported more of the content to other media (she entered into an agreement with Fox to turn HC titles into TV shows). She was, however, also behind the much-ridiculed Publishing+, a half-baked scheme involving MySpace and email blasts designed to foster "brand loyalty."

The announcement that Friedman was leaving the company came just days after she told a reporter at Book Expo America that she "loves" being the CEO of HarperCollins, leading to widespread speculation that she was in fact fired by Murdoch due to recent disappointing profits. It's not yet known whether Friedman, who was succeeded at HarperCollins by her number two, Brian Murray, will move on to another publishing job or simply retire.

Grudge

Friedman had a well-documented enmity with publishing proto-bitch Judith Regan, ex-chief of the erstwhile HarperCollins-owned Regan Books, the imprint responsible for such books as  Sean Hannity's and Jenna Jameson's. The two had been on icy terms for years, but the bad blood boiled over in December 2006 when Friedman—on orders from Murdoch himself—canned Regan because of the OJ Simpson If I Did It mess and Regan's subsequent borderline-anti-Semitic comment that Friedman, HarperCollins executive editor David Hirschey, Esther Newberg, and HarperCollins lawyer Mark Jackson constituted a "Jewish cabal" bent on her destruction. Friedman shut down the Regan Books imprint altogether in March 2007, folding its titles into existing HarperCollins imprints. A lawsuit by Regan against NewsCorp., HarperCollins and Friedman was settled out of court in January 2008.

Pet cause

Friedman is on the board of Literary Partners, a non-profit promoting literacy, alongside Diana Taylor, Liz Smith, and Susan Magrino.

Personal

Friedman's partner is Jeff Stone, a former Vintage executive who now runs his own brand-identity consultancy. She has two sons, Stefan Friedman—who works for Josh Isay and Jennifer Cunningham at KnickerbockerSKD—and Bradley Friedman; she's also stepmother to Jeff's two children, Dylan Stone and Morgan Stone. Friedman and Stone live on the East Side, near Sutton Place, and have a summer house in East Hampton.