Núria Cabutí: "I have been able to be an entrepreneur within a large business project"

"A few months after making the first purchase of a publishing house, I received a call from the association of literary agents, who are the authors' managers, because they wanted a meeting. We were in the middle of integration, renegotiating fees, and I was worried. But we got there and they told us: 'When one company buys another, there's a lot of noise in the market; authors are angry, booksellers, employees, everyone complains. But in your case, now everyone is happy. What's going on?'". And Núria Cabutí points out: "That's when I said: this will turn out well."

Leadership is explained, but above all, it is exercised. And Núria Cabutí is an example: since 2010 she has been CEO of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial and is a member of the supervisory board and the executive committee of the Bertelsmann group. In these years, she has gone from a 9% share to 26% and is now the leading Spanish-language publisher in the world. She is a member of the board of the Cercle d'Economia, and has recently been awarded Businesswoman of the Year by El Periódico. And the anecdote of the success of her first acquisition illustrates well what a leadership that puts people at the center means: when done well, it yields the best results.

Núria Cabutí participated in the latest True Leaders organized by EY and The New Barcelona Post, where she told her story at the head of the publishing group in a way that made it seem like what she had done was easy. "You explained it as if it were a coincidence, like someone just passing by... But the impact you have is very relevant: what is it that you do, that seems easy to you, and that from the outside seems like magic?", one of the attendees asked her, the entrepreneur Marc Bonavia. And Núria did not hesitate to acknowledge that "I believe it is the ability to inspire, to mobilize around a project. For people to feel proud of what they are doing, passion, ambition". Like, for example, when on Friday mornings the entire organization is awaiting the data published on market sales: "from the interns to my position. You can't impose that: people have to vibrate around the project. And you have to make it possible. And I am capable of inspiring around a project and at the same time being forceful when necessary, but being kind in my approach."

Behind this ability to inspire there is a very solid management base. An economist from the UAB, "I was lucky enough to be one of the first people to do an Erasmus, and I was able to graduate from Oxford, then I did my master's at IESE." When she was about to finish, and listening to consulting firms, Bertelsmann appeared: "they were looking for someone to accompany the general director in Spain. And I got excited, because I really like management and it seemed to me that in the creative world it could be very interesting." Granddaughter of a sculptor, daughter of a librarian, she started in 1992 as a financial analyst at Plaza & Janés, then went on to direct marketing, communication, and later entered the editorial areas: directing the entire children's and young adult area, and then paperback editions. "Until in 2010 they proposed that I be the general director." The company operated in nine countries: Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Miami for the Hispanic market: "And he told me: either all, or nothing. It was a challenge, but I said, well, I'll go ahead."

"I am capable of inspiring around a project and at the same time being forceful when necessary, being kind in my approach"

All this happened in the midst of a crisis in the Spanish market: "The company was almost losing money, and they asked me: try to be profitable, try to digitally transform the company. And let's see what you can do in Latin America, because those are very complicated markets." The company was then a joint venture of the German Bertelsmann and the Italian Mondadori, with very different cultures. "For the first six months, I dedicated myself to making restructuring plans, because the Spanish market was falling. And I thought: I'm not here to do this. So, what I proposed with my management team was that we had to look for alternatives. The whole market was bad, and it seemed to us that it was a good time to consolidate it. We started knocking on doors and looking for opportunities, what company might be willing to sell to us or partner with us."

They found the editorial division of Prisa: the communication group had a financial need and a presence in Latin America that suited them very well: "But here I encountered a very important lesson: when you are on a board with different shareholders, the interests are often also different." And to be able to buy Prisa's editorial division, he first had to get Bertelsmann to buy the other 50% of Random House from Mondadori. "I had never bought a company before. But we had a lot of help from professional teams. And Bertelsmann gave us a lot of empowerment: if you see it clearly, go ahead."

The second challenge was integration, "and I also had no experience in company integration. And what I do believe was a different approach and that worked very well for me was to focus on people. Many times, in an acquisition or a merger, you focus a lot on the numerical part, because you have to achieve profitability, deliver a result so that shareholders are calm; but we also know that most mergers or acquisitions fail, and it is not generally due to a product issue, but rather they fail due to a cultural issue, or because the company you buy is not understood or because there is no fit of people."

But Núria Cabutí soon knew how she had to do it: "If I wanted the integration to work, I had to get the support of the editors, who are the people who talk to the authors; to get the backing of the agents, who are the authors' managers; I needed the support of the authors, I needed the support of the booksellers". And she explains that she started by taking all her general directors to Barcelona, and ended up enthusing them to do it together in the best way.

She did it her way, with creativity: she distributed a copy of the day's newspaper El País, with a fake cover, as if the CEO of Prisa bought Random House and conveyed great expectations; by turning the situation around, Núria Cabutí won over her entire new team. "We dedicated a day and a half to thinking about how the integration of people would be, and then we thought about synergies and growing the project". And she also explains the importance of small gestures: "when the new employees joined our offices, we moved everyone around, and so, in a way, everyone started on a new project".

This first experience opened the door to new acquisitions. "Bertelsmann has two values that are transmitted to all its companies. One is creativity, which in the world of media and culture is fundamental. And the other is being an entrepreneur: and, in a way, that's what they have allowed me to be, an entrepreneur within a large business project". In ten years they have made seven acquisitions, and in all of them they have managed to improve the result they had foreseen. "I believe we have done what needs to be done, which is to concentrate on our stakeholders, our authors, our booksellers, our employees, and we have built this project of which I am very proud, and I believe that if you talk to any employee, they also feel very proud". Between Spain and Latin America, there are 1,800 people (the Bertelsmann group has 75,000).

In these years, the publishing sector has experienced one of the strongest transformations caused by digitalization, and Núria Cabutí has experienced it from the front row. "Amazon started strong with the Kindle and the great gurus said that by 2025, 80% of books would be digital. In our group there was a lot of discussion, but it seemed to us that the physical book would continue to be important. Therefore, while other publishing groups were divesting in logistics operations, we started to invest quite a lot. And what has happened is that now 80% is physical books. And studies tell us that young people prefer to read physical books. As Umberto Eco said: there are inventions that have not yet been surpassed, like the spoon or like the book".

This digital transition has been much more orderly and profitable than in other sectors such as music or newspapers, but it has caused a change in the business model that goes beyond the medium: "When we incorporate an author into our catalog, we no longer seek solely to publish their book, but also to have their audiovisual rights. More and more you will see that there are books that are being turned into series and movies, and we negotiate that with Netflix, Amazon… We want to have a more global approach with our authors".

"There is a great opportunity with artificial intelligence, but we believe in human creativity"

Another big topic with still unpredictable consequences is how artificial intelligence will impact the sector. And Núria Cabutí is clear: "We believe in human creativity. A literary work arises from experiences, from traumas, from a childhood, from travels, and all that is what makes human beings produce a literary work. And that seems hardly replicable in the world of AI, which feeds on databases. For example, Javier Cercas had the idea of publishing a book about the Pope traveling to Mongolia. I don't know what artificial intelligence would have had that idea. It's also about how the story is told, what themes are taken into account, what reflections are made. And in parallel, we do see that there is an enormous opportunity to use artificial intelligence in certain aspects: demand forecasts, knowing when we should reprint a title, warehouse management, robotics, automating processes...".

Piracy, in Spain and especially in some Latin American countries, is a problem for digital books, but physical book counterfeits are also produced: "we have to work from schools on respect for intellectual property". There is another issue that is also one of those buzzwords, which is sustainability: "for many years all paper and inks have been sustainable, we have eliminated plastic coatings. And if we can be more efficient in book distribution, there are also fewer surpluses. And we have made a large investment of 36 million euros in Cerdanyola del Vallès, a logistics center of 42,000 m² that helps us to deliver books much faster, much more efficiently".

"There is a regression in freedom of expression. We are facing pressure not to publish certain types of content. And in the US, books are being banned in schools and libraries."

Núria Cabutí observes with concern that "there is a regression in freedom of expression. We are facing pressure not to publish some types of content. And in the United States, books are being banned in schools and libraries, books that are as fundamental as The Diary of Anne Frank, because the Nazi Holocaust is denied, or George Orwell's 1984". Trump has sued them for millions for publishing a book about him written by journalists from The New York Times. "As a publishing group, we are very active, but we obviously take many hits". And she is concerned that society does not protest: "the Oscars Gala was an opportunity, and no one said anything; people are afraid. And that is the worst thing that can happen in a society".

Núria continues to be excited every morning about what she does, and values that strategy is as important as execution, and having a good team around her: "I was just another colleague when I was promoted, and I have had a stable team around me; we have all grown with the project". Now there are 18 people "of eight different nationalities, very different ages, very different backgrounds, very different mentalities, and I believe that diversity has also helped me to develop the project well".

As a successful executive, she is also aware of the importance of seeking balance between personal and professional life: "with age, I have been seeing the importance that, in the end, to be able to carry out a good business project, you have to be well with yourself". And she also recognizes herself as privileged, because "I meet very interesting people. I can be with Harari; I can be with a Nobel Prize in Literature; or with great psychologists who also research and observe trends, and that enriches me a lot". And she also highlights the Bertelsmann International Council, "where the family and external advisors are, like Pablo Isla, people from the automotive industry in Germany, from the energy world in Denmark, people who also help me by enriching me in the debate about what is happening and where the world is going".

In her position, she reports to New York and Gütersloh (northern Germany), and travels a lot, also throughout the American continent. And she is, above all, a great defender of Barcelona: the city that experienced that boom of Latin American authors, which is a key bastion of the publishing industry. "Barcelona is the world capital of the book in Catalan and Spanish. And we have the most spectacular book world event that exists: Sant Jordi. It is an impressive festivity that everyone admires and that, moreover, is growing. It is magical, and we must know how to take care of it".

Núria Cabutí: "I have been able to be an entrepreneur within a large business project"

Núria Cabutí participated in the last True Leaders organized by EY and The New Barcelona Post, where she explained her story at the helm of the publishing group in a way that made it seem that what she has achieved had been easy.