The Team

Iain Millar is one of Canelo’s co-founders and now Managing Director of both Canelo and Hera. A successful ebook publisher and award-winning book marketer, he is increasingly passionate about reading as a form of entertainment, and about ensuring that pleasure is truly accessible to all.

Nick Barreto works where books and technology intersect. He’s managed and built apps, is an expert on ebook formats, metadata and workflows. He is committed to automating all the repetitive tasks to free up more time for the work that matters. Nick is one of Canelo’s co-founders and the Operations Director.

Louise Cullen is Executive Publisher of the Canelo Publishing division. She has published authors including million-copy bestseller Rachel Lynch, Marion Todd and Jenny Blackhurst. Canelo Crime is also part of this division and headed up by Louise.

Keshini Naidoo has extensive experience of breaking books into bestseller status, with her biggest authors selling millions of copies in digital sales alone. Having started her editorial career at Avon (HarperCollins UK), she then moved to being Associate Publisher at Bookouture, where she published global bestsellers including Angela Marsons and Kathryn Croft.

She was named a Bookseller Rising Star in 2017, because she has “unabashedly embraced commercial titles”.

Keshini loves all genres of commercial fiction – from dark psychological thrillers with a twist that leaves you breathless to cosy romance that comforts like a mug of steaming hot chocolate, she always has a book (or three) on the go. She’s passionate about bringing the best stories to life on the page and wants to publish books that keep you reading until the wee small hours…

Martina O’Sullivan is Executive Publisher of August Books.

Martina is an experienced editor with almost 20 years’ experience working in trade, scholarly and academic publishing across a broad range of subjects with authors ranging from early career academics to celebrities and influencers. Authors she has worked with include Ruby Wax, Joanne McNally, Seth Godin, General Stanley McChrystal, Dr Rangan Chatterjee, Anne Boden, Drs John and Julie Gottman and Dr Robert Livingston.

Martina is expanding our non-fiction publishing in history, popular culture, popular science and true crime. She is keen to explore ideas for books that don’t sit within traditional categories.

Hannah Cowie is Canelo’s Campaigns Director. With over 20 years’ publishing experience in PR and marketing, Hannah has worked with a wide range of top ten bestselling authors in both fiction and non-fiction including Elly Griffiths, Peter May, Beth O’Leary, David Lagercrantz, Damien Lewis, Julian Clary and Katie Piper.

Emily Bedford is an Editorial Director at Canelo. She publishes contemporary women’s fiction, romance, and female-led historical fiction. She has previously worked at Bloomsbury as well as Taylor & Francis in editorial roles.

Ause Abdelhaq is a Senior Commissioning Editor for August Books.

Ause has worked across a broad range of non-fiction in his career, publishing numerous bestsellers including the 2024 FT Business Book of the Year, Supremacy by Parmy Olson. His expertise is in crafting addictive and eminently accessible narrative non-fiction, with his speciality genres including sport, expose, true crime and puzzles. Authors he has worked with include Olympic heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, NBA All-Star Stephen Curry, Times tech journalist Katie Prescott, YouTube sensation Tom Scott, England rugby legend Ben Youngs, and Palestinian journalist and activist Plestia Alaqad.

Ause will continue to commission across sport, puzzle, true crime and broad narrative non-fiction. He particularly enjoys books that challenge or upend the traditional boundaries of their genre, and is a firm believer that diversification in any industry leads to better output and increased revenues.

Craig Lye is a Commissioning Editor at Canelo. He has a background in historical fiction and has published authors including Angus Donald, S.J.A Turney, Douglas Jackson, D.L. Marshall, Charles Beaumont and Capt. W.E. Johns’ Biggles. He is looking to commission exciting new talent in historical adventure and spy thrillers.

Pauli is a Commissioning Editor at Canelo. She publishes romance and saga fiction and has a particular love for witty, sarcastic, strong female leads and rom coms. She previously worked at Jessica Kingsley Publishers where she learnt the power and importance of diversity and inclusivity in books.

Jennie has nine years of editorial experience working in a freelance capacity across a wide range of fiction genres, including working on several best-selling titles and series. She joined the Hera team in 2022 as an editor, helping to guide authors through the editorial and publishing process. She is passionate about bringing new voices to the Hera list.

She is always looking for own voice fiction, as well as gripping psych thrillers, hooky rom-coms and engrossing sagas. Her own bookshelves are an eclectic mix but she can never resist a dark domestic psych thriller.

After starting her career as the first Penguin Random House publishing apprentice in 2019, Dan O’Brien was awarded her Publishing Assistant qualification in March 2021. Having assisted teams at both Ebury Fiction and Transworld, participating editorially on a range of bestselling titles, she is now a member of the Hera team as a publishing executive.

Dan has recently had her own work published by The Society of Young Publishers and The Bookseller, commenting on issues of classism and the impact social media is having on the publishing industry. She’s passionate about unconventional, macabre, and gripping stories with a twist. Though her shelves are slowly filling with tear-jerkers and romances.

Alicia Pountney is an Editor at Canelo. She loves anything on the darker side of commercial fiction and publishes crime, thriller and horror. She had a brief stint in magazine publishing before deciding the world of books was where her heart truly lay. She has worked at Heywood Hill bookshop and at The Bookshop by WHSmith.

Hannah Taylor is an editor for August Books. Hannah’s editorial career began with a mixture of both fiction and non-fiction, first at John Murray, followed by Canelo. Her focus now lies solely with non-fiction. A few authors that she has worked with in the past include Philomena Cunk, Noraly Schoenmaker and Sarah Cooper.

Hannah is commissioning narrative non-fiction across popular culture, society and history. She finds herself drawn to offbeat stories that contain a note of hope.

Felix Janosik is Canelo’s Production Executive.

Micaela Cavaletto has a background in digital publishing, and she has worked in academic and trade sectors. She is passionate about ebooks, coding and new technologies. Micaela is Canelo’s Production Manager.

Kim has a passion for stories and all the emotions that ensue when one is reading a fantastic book. She is invested in not just reaching readers and fans, but people who do not pick up books ordinarily. Her experience in sales has grown from her first job at Ingram, and then working at Head of Zeus/Bloomsbury in the international sales team. Kim is now focused and determined to help Canelo take all bookshops by storm, independents and chains alike.

Kate Shepherd is Canelo's Publicist. She's worked in publishing for many years, for companies big and small, where she's endeavored to get coverage for fiction and non-fiction titles, dictionaries, and journals.

Deirbhile Brennan is the e-book Sales Executive at Canelo. They have previously worked at Titan Books and held various roles as bookseller and journalist. Deirbhile is interested in making reading as accessible as possible, and they are passionate about the potential of ebooks and audiobooks to make that happen.

Nicole Abel is Canelo’s print Production and Logistics Manager and has worked in Book Production for over 20 years. In 2007 she won the Stora Enso Design and Production Award at the British Book Industry Awards for The Dangerous Book for Boys. She has previously worked at HarperCollins, Hachette and Scholastic.

Aidan Kavanagh is an Assistant Editor at Canelo. He works closely with Louise on the Canelo Crime list. Aidan’s editorial career began at Sweet Cherry Publishing where he worked on books for children before finding his new home at Canelo.

Michael Bhaskar has worked on many acclaimed ebook, app and web projects including the app 80 Days and the series Ideas in Profile. He is also the author of The Content Machine, Curation: The power of selection in a world of excess and The Coming Wave. Michael is one of Canelo’s co-founders and is on the Canelo Board of Directors.