I see that Highlights for Children recently attended events in China and Europe. Can you talk a bit about global expansion and its importance, specifically as a middle market company? Our international expansion has both business-driven and mission-driven goals. We invest heavily in creating content for our core U. Therefore, our approach is to try to find local partners with the right values and expertise, who know their local culture and consumers.
Then, we hope to work with and learn from these partners in healthy, long-term relationships that bring great products to schools and homes around the world. What are some advantages and challenges of working for a middle market company?
Middle market companies are fortunate to have enough scale to make things happen while being small enough to make decisions quickly and move with some speed. I hope that everyone working at Highlights for Children feels that they can have a meaningful impact on achieving our company goals and can see how their work impacts our customers. Middle market companies can have growing pains, and we have felt that as we have moved into new product or business areas. I think most companies like us run pretty lean, which can be a challenge, especially in balancing the complexity of ongoing and new business areas with a small management team.
What are you most excited about? Garry Cleveland Myers and Caroline Clark Myers, late in their careers as educators at 59 and 61, wanted to create a magazine for both parents and children. Kent Johnson, the current CEO of Highlights for Children and great-grandson of the founders, said the Myers had spent much of their careers focusing on what was then a new field of parenting and childhood development, and Highlights became a way for them to spread their knowledge.
Johnson, 52, said Highlights' first print run in made only 20, copies — all of which were sold and delivered door to door. Last year was about 10 million kids interacting with our content across 40 countries. But 75 years ago, the world was much different. Johnson said the most important part of adapting has been keeping the goal of the magazine the same.
Highlights has magazines aimed at kids from birth to 12 years old. But the company has now expanded to having an interactive website with games, articles, and even jokes. There are also Highlights apps , a podcast and a YouTube Channel. Dwight Smith, from Springfield, who grew up reading Highlights magazine, is now 64 — and still loves it just as much as he did all those years ago. As a family, it was very difficult, and it was for many years. But we all made it through. Johnson is the great-grandson of Garry C.
Highlights has a long tradition of helping kids point their moral compass in the direction of goodness see: Goofus and Gallant. And in the early days, that mission included publishing passages from the Bible. But the goal was never to push one ideology: Bible stories ran alongside pieces on other world religions, such as Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. And they're not. Having good morals doesn't mean you have to be Christian.
It's just knowing right from wrong. It's essentially what it boils down to. If a magazine is as old as Highlights , chances are good that some pretty big names will have passed through its pages. At one point in 44 Pages , we see a layout with a story bylined Robert Louis Stevenson. And later, editor-in-chief Christine French Cully shares with editor Judy Burke a gem she unearthed from the archives: a letter from Highlights editor Walter B.
He says one of those opportunities is to help kids outside the U. The company is also developing a digital library. Growing a fourth-generation family publishing company as CEO seemed unlikely for Johnson less than 20 years ago. Originally a high school physics teacher, Johnson returned to school to get his Ph. He went to a medical diagnostics company to work in research and development.
As the company grew, he moved to product development, manufacturing and some customer service. The two men discussed possibilities for about a year before Johnson settled into the role of VP of strategic planning in July , the role he held before becoming CEO.
I want to be a part of this. Brown started at Staff Development for Educators before moving to Highlights. There he worked in editorial, product development and publishing technologies. He joined the foundation in and became executive director in Aside from George Brown and Johnson, few members of the owners group work in the business, which is why current CEO transition discussions are leaning toward a non-family executive in the not-so-near future.
Johnson is in his 40s and has no plans to leave Highlights any time soon. Focus on governance The family always saw governance as an important tool and over the years has applied best practices at the board level. The business had a board early on, but it was made up of family.
Mikelson joined the board as a family director in The first independent director joined the board in Networking with other family businesses and learning best practices through family business conferences and consultants inspired the family to add more. The board is now majority independent.
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