Inside Scholarly Publishing: Leadership, Change, and Vision with Sophia Anderton

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About The Publisherspeak Podcast

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Real stories. Honest reflections. Conversations about leadership, change, and the work that shapes our world.

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Hosted by Sowmya Mahadevan, Chief Orchestrator at Kriyadocs, The Publisherspeak Podcast features interviews with people making meaningful moves—inside and outside the world of scholarly publishing. From academic leaders and publishing professionals to coaches and change-makers, each episode goes beyond job titles to explore personal journeys and the mindsets behind impactful work.

In this episode

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Host Sowmya speaks with Sophia Anderton, Director of Publishing at the BJU International (BJUI), about navigating leadership and change in scholarly publishing.

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With over 20 years of experience across nonprofit and society publishing, Sophia shares her reflections on what it takes to lead through transformation.

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This is a conversation about vision, values, and the very human side of publishing leadership. Tune in for thought-provoking perspectives on career growth, collaboration, and what it means to stay mission-driven in a fast-changing world.

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Dive into the conversation below or watch the episode here.

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Full conversation

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Sowmya: So, today we are going to dive into her journey and get her take on where the industry is headed. Sophia, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you here.

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Sophia: Hi Sowmya, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to having the chat today.

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Sowmya: Yeah, absolutely. Hey, you've had a very inspiring 20 plus years of career at publishing here. I'd like to hear about how it all started. Was it a very planned, intentional thing that you ended up in publishing? Where did you start?

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Sophia: There was no plan whatsoever. It was entirely accidental that I ended up in publishing. I did a chemistry degree, and I was coming towards the end of my final and fourth and final year and I thought, I have no idea what I want to do. I thought I probably didn't want to carry on and do any further chemistry studies. I thought that my lab skills were probably not going to take me terribly far in that direction.

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But then by chance I saw a job advert to be a publishing graduate trainee at the Royal Society of Chemistry, and I thought, right, why don't I apply for that? It'll be good interview practice. All my other friends, they seemed to have great plans of what they were doing and were applying for jobs all over the place. So, I thought, well, I should at least apply for something. And I was called down to Cambridge for an interview, had an assessment centre with 12 other people and I was offered a job and so I thought, brilliant.

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I've moved to Cambridge. That's a nice city, nice place to live for a couple of years. I honestly thought that I'd be doing it for a couple of years while I thought about what I wanted to do when I grew up. Fast forward nearly 21 years later and I'm still working in publishing. And it was one of the happiest accidents that's happened in my life.

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Sowmya: That's fabulous. I mean, happy accidents are always very good in your career. Was there like sort of like a pivotal moment that said, okay, you know what, this is the career for me. I would love to stay in continuing publishing because you said when you joined you had probably a two year, three year outlook at this industry.

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Sophia: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've always taken the approach that if I'm doing something I enjoy and if I'm continuing to learn in what I'm doing, then, there's no reason to leave and move on. But my first, well, probably my biggest pivotal moment came very early on. I'd been at the Royal Society of Chemistry for about a year and a series of job opportunities came up and I applied, as did everyone else in my cohort, and I was given one of the senior jobs to become a deputy managing editor to manage a team of publishing editors who were working on the materials chemistry journals. I was only 23 at the time, just 23. And it was a sort of moment of, wow, I can do this.

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There are some people who are putting their faith in me to allow me to jump to the next level much sooner than I had anticipated. And so, at that point I had a whole new set of challenges to learn. There was a moment when I was rather scared and daunted by the fact that I'd be taking on this role at that point. And one of my colleagues who'd been in the industry a fair bit longer than me just took me to one side and said, don't be scared. If you could do all the job already, it wouldn't be the job for you.

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Because every job, you should have the opportunity to grow into the people who've appointed you, see the potential, enjoy that, take that potential and carry on learning. And that was, I think, a really wise piece of advice to not be worried that you can't do absolutely everything when you start. Part of the process of getting a job done is learning how to do it along the way.

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Sowmya: I think that's a really, really valuable piece of advice to anyone in any job. Because I think as you are trying to figure out how to do the job, you also have to invest a little bit of your time in figuring out how to be better at the job, learn the job and do it, you know, improve yourself. And that's, I think, the growth mindset that you're talking about. Right. It's you grow into the job and you kind of learn along the way and improve it as you go along.

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Sophia: Absolutely. I think it's about working with your colleagues to come together and have a group decision. And that's actually, I found a really good technique is getting everybody involved from an early stage, everyone having input into how we're going to do something new. It's a great way to bring people along. But also you've got more heads, more opinions to discuss ideas and hopefully get to the right solution.

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Sowmya: Yeah, that's pretty fantastic. Is there anything about publishing that sort of surprised you? I mean, of course, I think you had an opportunity to stay close to science. Even though you said you didn't know if you belonged in the chemistry labs, you still stayed quite close to chemistry and were leading, you know, the publication of science in that discipline. Was there anything about publishing that sort of surprised you or shocked you?

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Sophia: I'm not sure. I think. I don't think I had that many expectations early on. I mean, as I've got on in my career, I found so many other people who got into academic publishing via a similar route, i.e. by accident, which that's almost surprising. Quite a number of people I've spoken to over the years thought they'd just do it for a couple of years and then have found themselves having a whole career in it.

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I think it's such a warm community. It's such a varied career. I mean, this is what I've said to anyone I've spoken to almost from day one. It's really varied. You don't spend all day, every day doing the same thing. There's a wide range of different things that are involved in publishing and for that I think it's brilliant. And there are a whole load of fabulous people involved in the publishing world.

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Sowmya: That one thing I totally agree with. I think there's a ton of very, very wonderful and warm people that you can learn with and I think who are truly very helpful.

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Sophia: Yeah. And I find that particularly working for a small organization. I mean, the organization I work in at the moment, there are only eight of us in the organization. We're absolutely tiny. But the way that we can thrive and survive is by talking to other people who are in similar situations. There are lots and lots of society publishers that have only a handful of staff working in the publishing team and that built up a network of connections of those people.

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One particular shout out that I'll give is to the Society Publisher’s Coalition. So, this is a group of people who work at societies with publishing arms, or they don't necessarily have to be societies or membership associations per se, but not for profit and publishers, where all the proceeds go back into science and furthering research. And we have a network. I think it's 144 societies at the last count. And it's a really open forum where we can ask questions, share ideas, and share experiences. And it's such a welcoming group from across the world. It's a fabulous community.

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Sowmya: That's wonderful. You are currently leading BJUI. You're the chief executive at BJUI. That's an amazing journey that you have gone through. But you're also leading this organization at a time when there's a lot of changes happening in publishing in the way science is consumed, science is created. So, what are your thoughts around, say, leading change and what are your aspirations for BJUI?

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Sophia: I mean, I think it's a funny one because yes, there is a lot of change going on on the surface, but deep down there is a lot of consistency. Ultimately, publishing is for researchers, for authors, and that is the core of what everything we do in publishing is about. It can sometimes feel easy to get bogged down in things like budgets, technology, AI, open access models, all these things. But actually the important thing to keep remembering is the authors and the researchers, the readers, the authors, those are at the core of everything that we do. So, there does need to be some level of consistency in producing high quality products for that community.

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But I won't deny that community doesn't change. So, it's important to keep listening to the community, talking to the community, go to conferences, listen. It's a really people focused industry. Yes, within publishing professionals, but also outwit of that. So, the communities that we serve are the core of what we do.

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Sowmya: That's a very interesting way to look at it. I think if I can just equate, you're saying a publishing professional is actually more like a community manager. You have to make sure that you're nurturing the author, the science community that is around the journal, around the publication per se. But it's actually all about the people who are in there

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Sophia: Absolutely, I would agree with that 100%. It is about the community. If we forget the community, we might as well not be doing anything.

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Sowmya: Yeah, that's very, very interesting. And I'm sure over the years you've led change initiatives, you've tried to bring people along and mentor. Are there some interesting change management stories or mentoring stories that you would like to share with us today?

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Sophia: I think change can be done well and it can be done badly. And I've been on the leading and the receiving end of all of that. I think when it goes well, it's when there's communication and honest communication, when change happens, sometimes all the answers aren't clear from the beginning.

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And I think being able to admit that there are some known unknowns in a period of change is very important. Yes, ideally when you're presenting a change or you're going through a change, there is a plan and there's a plan in place from the beginning. But sometimes those plans have to change. Sometimes for whatever reason, they can't be fixed from the start.

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But talking to the people who are affected by the change, communicating regularly, listening, that's a really important one, listening, consulting where appropriate, taking people's points of view. So those are the examples, I think when change management works better. I was in an example once when a small group of people I wasn't involved with, that I was on the receiving end of it, came up with a plan and then just presented it fait accompli to a large number of people that scared people. They didn't see it coming. There was no opportunity to input and that left a lot of disgruntled people and it took a lot of unpicking.

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Other examples where there's been better communication consultation have worked better equally. I mean, having some kind of plan is important. If you just kind of present to people we're going to change something, but I don't know how it is yet that is going to scare people. So, communicate and be honest is I think the core of what I would say is key in changing management.

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Sowmya: So, Sophia, in your experience, I'm sure you've brought your team along, mentored and grown them into different roles. I just wanted to hear some of your examples of people who you have directly mentored or what is your approach to growing your team.

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‍Sophia: So, I think from a management and mentoring point of view, I think having regular one to one contact with the people who report to you is really important. I schedule a short meeting with everyone who reports to me every week. We don't always meet every week, but there is that time put aside in the diary so that if there's something I want to talk to them about on a one to one basis, we can do that. But if there's something they want to bring to me, they have regular opportunities and I think that's really important.

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But part of that conversation is talking to people about what they want to do, where they see their career going. I think some of the best ways to develop somebody is giving people more opportunities, getting people involved with projects that they might not normally be involved with in their day to day role. And that's delegation really. So sometimes I found the best ways to develop somebody is to delegate something to them to do that is outside of Their comfort zone, something that perhaps I would have been leading on or I'd been part of. And then we work on it together and that's been a good opportunity.

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This worked particularly well with somebody who I worked with a long time ago. They were very experienced in their role, but they were getting bored and as a result their attitude was quite negative. And this was starting to rub off on other people in the team. So, we had a really frank conversation. We spoke about things that this person could do differently and additional tasks.

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They were in such a bad place, they wanted to say no to all of this. So, I encouraged them to do some things and give them some new opportunities, something different for them to get their teeth into. And I actually gave them a big project which I think to other people around thought, why am I rewarding this person with this nice project who's been behaving so negatively? But actually it was the best thing that could have happened. They were rejuvenated in their work life and they really got their teeth into it and performed to a really high level.

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And it was the best thing they could have done. And they went on to become a team leader and a manager themselves as a result of this and were promoted when a few months earlier they'd be on the verge of resigning and leaving. So, giving people something different to do can be a really great way of promoting them forwards.

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‍Sowmya: No, that's a wonderful leadership lesson for me as well. I think somewhere I read this quote that said change itself isn't hard, but resistance to change is what is hard.

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I think if, you know, we all take that for granted. But people, once the, the resistance to change goes away, change itself happens very, very quickly. And that's where having a good mentor or having a good manager who's helping you through that resistance to change face can sometimes help bring out the best in people. I'm so happy to hear that that person that you talked about had you as the manager because it would have very easily gone the other way around. And you know, them leaving the organization and you losing a valuable resource, right and yeah, but I think that comes down to a leadership style. The patience to listen, as you said, to listen to your people, to see and to spot some talent that is there that for whatever reason is hidden away under multiple layers.

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Sophia: Yeah, I think you make an interesting point about resistance to change. I think as humans naturally, we don't like change. We like what is the familiar. And early on in my career, somebody else said to me just Say yes to every opportunity. And sometimes I've regretted that because it's left me juggling too many balls.

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But at other times it's opened up the doors for new opportunities and new things that I didn't know I was going to be interested in. In my last role at the British Institute of Radiology, where I was director of publishing. My role was focused very much on journals and a few books, but it was very journals publishing heavy. And my manager at the time asked me to start a project about video education and video learning for radiologists and radiographers and anyone in that community. And this was so outside my comfort zone, so different to what I was doing.

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I felt quite anxious about it. I wasn't terribly keen, if I'm honest, but I said, right, okay, yeah, I'll do that. And it's one of the most rewarding projects I've ever been involved with. Creating a brand new product from the start, doing all the research involved with it, it was really rewarding. And as a result, the job that I'm in now I probably wouldn't have got had I not had that education experience of online education experience. So, sometimes the things that you don't think you want to do can be the thing that opens the next door.

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Sowmya: Yeah. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

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‍Sophia: Yes, exactly.

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‍Sowmya: Absolutely. So, coming back to publishing as a topic. Are there any current trends that you are seeing in publishing that you're excited about?

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Sophia: I think you would be remiss if I didn't mention AI at this moment. It's really exciting. It's also terrifying at the same time. I think it has those two emotions hand in hand. I think it has enormous potential for supporting researchers.

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And actually in research applications itself, some tasks that have been very manual in the past could have the potential to be really accelerated through AI. I think also the potential in publishing for editorial and production staff to. To process manuscripts much more quickly is really exciting. And we're using AI in a partnership with Kudos in creating lay summaries of all our content, which is really exciting. Helping a much wider audience reach our content straight off, using AI to create those summaries.

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So, there's some really exciting applications and there'll be many more to come. But I do think it has potential for creating problems. I think research integrity needs to be really focused on AI developments.

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Some of the early AI programs, it's quite obvious to spot them, some of the labored phrases that come out of with AI created content and the inaccuracies But AI is getting better all the time. Every day, every week, it's getting better and better and more difficult to spot when it's being used by bad actors. I do think, however, that AI has an opportunity to go full circle and to try and use AI to detect some of those bad actors and to detect itself. I am not a technical person. I don't know how that's going to work, but I do think that there are real opportunities for doing that.

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Sowmya: Yeah, I remember that you chaired a session at Publisherspeak UK on research integrity, but I think a lot of these fears or misgivings kind of came out and opportunities for what we could do. So, I think there is a lot ahead of the publishing community in both leveraging AI as a strength and in figuring out how to not make it a weakness as well, I suppose.

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Sophia: Absolutely.

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Sowmya: Right now, I've seen you be very active in promoting your education on a global scale.

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You said that you're traveling quite a bit, you're going to a lot of conferences. What does that look like? What is your role in sort of promoting science or bringing this community together and, you know, what is it that you're doing on at BJUI?

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Sophia: Yeah. So, the BJUI charity is what underpins all the activities and the products that we have. And apart from the journals, we have a large educational platform. It's called BJUI Knowledge. And this has a vast array of content, educational content for urologists, and it's accessed all across the world. We've got over 10,000 users internationally and our trustees have kindly made it available for anyone who's in a training program free of charge. So, any trainee anywhere in the world can have access to BJUI Knowledge. And one of the big parts of my role is to go and promote that policy and allowing people to sign up and use BJUI knowledge for free, for helping them trained to become fully qualified urologists.

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We've been working in a lot of areas in Southeast Asia. We've got new relationships set up in Africa and South America. We're particularly trying to reach people in countries that may not have so many resources available to them on the ground so that we can support what training they do have with these additional resources.

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So, whilst I'm there, I will also talk about publishing and research and journals. When I was in Indonesia last year, we ran a workshop for authors on how to write papers and the best practices for getting papers published. I had a message only last week from somebody who had been at that session telling me that they'd submitted to our journal for the first time, which they'd never thought of submitting to us before. So, that was a really nice opportunity. And one of our trustees was out doing something similar in Nepal last week and I'm off to Taiwan later in the year to do something similar.

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So, we're trying to reach communities that perhaps wouldn't have thought to publish in our journals and really trying to encourage that.

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Sowmya: And it looks like you're also holding their hand. It's like you're teaching them what the best practices are, which is a really, really fantastic thing because I think one of the ways to address the research integrity problem is also to educate on the, on the best practices. So that’s very refreshing to hear and kudos to BJUI for leading that and kudos to you for leading that. That sort of an effort.

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Sophia: Yeah. So, research integrity is certainly something that we do, we do talk about and we want to try and expand this as much as we can and we're looking at doing some more web-based delivery of some of these, this education.  

Sowmya: Fantastic. So, as you look out for the over the next, you know, three, five, ten years at BJUI, what is your vision? What does it look like? What does the landscape look like? What are you most excited about as you look at the future?

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Sophia: It's the I in BJUI. So we're BJU International. It's the international aspect that I'm really excited about and following on from what I was just speaking about reaching people in international regions that wouldn't necessarily have had the opportunity to do the research and present it on a global forum and just supporting people all around the world. That is the thing that I'm most excited about.

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Sowmya: I think it was such a wonderful conversation. I think certainly for me I've had a lot of takeaways from a leadership change management. I certainly learned that it's so important to listen if you really want to change. And so, the one thing that I wanted to, you know, ask you was are there any books that you go to, are there podcasts that you listen to on a periodic basis? That where you get your leadership lessons from?

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Sophia: I think from, I don't know about leadership per se, but certainly from the publishing, very broad publishing. You can't beat the Scholarly Kitchen. And that is the blog that is public, the published every weekday and it has such a, an array of different articles pertaining to all areas of publishing, from the latest technology through to mental health and everything in between. I would highly recommend any, anybody to read that. And even if you look at the title and think, oh, I'm not sure I'm interested in that one, I'd say at least skim, read it, read it through.

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Because it's just constantly building your knowledge. And that is what's important in this industry, is to keep building your knowledge. And that might be through resources like newsletters and blogs, but also talk to people, build your community, build your network. Some of the people that I would class as my network are people I met on my first day in publishing over 20 years ago. That's my network.

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When I have issues or things I don't know how to deal with, those are the people I go to. First and foremost, the people that you meet early on will be your lifelong contacts and networks. So, nurture those and nurture all the contacts and the people you meet throughout your career. You never know when you'll need to call on them and call on somebody's expertise.

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We are a community. We all support each other. There are very few people who work in this industry who are actually direct competitors. So, there is a lot of ability  to share confidentially and get some sage advice.

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Sowmya: That's a very good takeaway, I think, especially for women. I don't think we put networking as a top priority at all. I certainly know that's the way it is in India. I don't know how it is in the UK, but I think we don't understand the value of networking. So, that's a very important advice that I think all of our listeners would take away. To sum it all up, I think what I got out of this podcast was certainly as a leader, you have to listen, you have to learn how to network to know what the trends are. And you can never stop learning. Constantly upskilling yourself, reading a lot, you know, subscribing to blogs and just keeping in touch. Being part of the community is the way to kind of grow. So wonderful. It was so good talking to you, Sophia, and thank you so much once again for being on our podcast. And I'm sure all of our listeners would also have such nuggets of wisdom that they can take away from today's talk. Thank you so much.

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Sophia: Thank you, Sowmya. I really enjoyed it.

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