Against The Grain - The Podcast

Audio from the 2024 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. Heather Staines, Senior Strategy Consultant, Delta Think interviews Richard Charkin, Founder, Mensch Publishing. Richard is a veteran of the publishing industry. In this conversation, Heather and Richard discuss his early years in publishing, and the changes he has witnessed throughout his 50 years working in the industry,  the most noticeable being the rise of women in leadership roles, which is also the subject of a recent book he has written.  Richard also shares his experiences working with the Oxford English Dictionary on a digitization project in the 80’s, modernizing the dictionary, integrating vast amounts of data, and making it more accessible.  He also talks about global publishing, working with some high profile individuals, and also working with startups like Biomednet, the first social network for scientists in 1995. He emphasizes the importance of startups in driving innovation, as large corporations often struggle to inno