By Kevin McCauley
Marjorie Scardino, a journalist by training who resisted past calls to divest the Financial Times, is stepping down as CEO of Pearson at the end of the year after a 16-year run.
She will be succeeded by John Fallon, the 50-year-old head of the world’s largest education company’s international unit.
Scardino’s departure triggers speculation about the potential sale of Pearson’s no-fit FT and Penguin book operations. The education sector generates 75 percent of Pearson’s revenues and 80 percent of pre-tax profit. It employs 15,000 people in 70 nations.
Wall Street puts Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., owner of the Wall Street Journal, along with exiting New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s media empire, and Thomson Reuters among potential suitors for the FT trophy property.
Fallon heads Pearson’s international education business, which includes the fast-growing markets of China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
Pearson, in its release, calls international unit the division that is “fundamental” to its growth strategy.
Pearson chairman Glen Moreno praised Scardino for shifting the business portfolio “towards all kinds of learning, its geographic exposure towards fast-growing economies and its product mix towards digital and services. It has been a radical and highly successful transformation.”
Scardino was editor of the Georgia Gazette and CEO of The Economist Group before joining Pearson |