Smith Named CEO of Reed Business Information; Casella Takes Reed Business Reins

-- Library Journal, 11/30/2005

Tad Smith, executive vice president of Reed Business Information (RBI), publisher of Library Journal, has been appointed chief executive officer, succeeding James A. Casella, who has been promoted to vice chairman of Reed Business. RBI, a member of the Reed Elsevier Group, covers 23 market sectors with more than 100 market-leading publications, including Variety, Publishers Weekly, Interior Design, and EDN. Smith began in 2000 at RBI, then called Cahners, as president of Internet operations, and was soon promoted to president of the media division. Two years later, he added the retail group of publications. In 2003-04, Smith and his team negotiated a strategic relationship with Google to accelerate RBI's web revenue growth as well as concluded a joint venture with International Data Group (IDG) and the government of China to launch several magazines, including Variety, in local language editions for that country. In January 2005, Smith was promoted to executive VP of RBI.

Casella, as vice chairman of Reed Business, now has overall responsibility for the growth and development of Reed Business in China, India, Russia, and Brazil (the BRIC markets). Reed Business is the business-to-business division of Reed Elsevier Group, including magazines, exhibitions, directories, online media, and marketing services. Casella joined RBI in January 2002, when it was called Cahners. He led the rebranding from Cahners to Reed Business Information to better align the company with its parent and, in 2003, also pioneered the partnership with IDG (his former employer) and the Chinese government to launch multiple RBI publications in the Chinese language.