Michael Jacobs

Michael Jacobs is President and CEO of ABRAMS, one of the world’s best-known illustrated and children’s book publishers. He joined the company in 2004, having previously held executive positions at Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Scholastic, where he oversaw the marketing, sales, and distribution for the North American publication of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. After an almost forty-year hiatus from higher education, he returned to finish his degree as an Eli Whitney scholar at Yale University, receiving a BA in history.

Jacobs serves on the Board of Governors at Yale University Press as well as the National Coalition Against Censorship where he was previously chair and has been honored by the Goddard Riverside Community Center, New York City’s largest settlement house. He has served on the Board of the Academy of American Poets since 2006 and was Chair from 2013 through 2021. Jacobs is married to the novelist and teacher Sheridan Hay and lives in Washington County, New York.