Dive Brief:
- Publishing company Wiley appointed Xerox alum Craig Albright to its top financial seat, effective June 26, according to a Monday securities filing.
- Albright will succeed interim finance chief Chris Caridi, who will remain with the Hoboken, New Jersey-based company as its SVP, chief accounting officer and finance transformation leader, according to the filing.
- The publisher of academic materials has tapped a new CFO as it looks to “shape the future of AI in research,” with the company launching an AI partnership program in October. The company also reported revenues from AI licensing agreements nearly doubled for its fiscal 2025, reporting $40 million in such revenues compared to $23 million in fiscal 2024, according to its most recent earnings report.
Dive Insight:
As CFO for Wiley, Albright is set to receive an annual base salary of $550,000, according to the filing with the SEC. He will also be eligible for an annual incentive opportunity with a target of 100% of his base and will be eligible for annual grants under the company’s long-term incentive program, with a target incentive of 200% of his base salary, the company said. Wiley will also provide compensation and other support for relocation.
Albright served in various executive roles during a two-decade span at Xerox, most recently serving as its CFO, Americas and global cash center lead, according to his LinkedIn profile. He started his career as a business analyst and consultant for Big Four firm Deloitte and served as an executive consultant for marketing firm Butler/Till before founding his own advisory and consulting firm, Albright Strategy & Capital, last December.
Joining Wiley “represents an incredible opportunity to further position the Company for the AI age,” Albright said in a statement included in a Monday press release announcing the move.
Caridi, who joined the publishing firm in 2017 as its controller and CAO, has served as interim finance chief since Christina Van Tassell departed from the role last October, according to a press release at the time. Effective April 1, Wiley increased Caridi’s compensation from $406,653 to $450,000 and boosted his annual target incentive to 85% of his annual base salary, for the duration of his service as interim CFO, according to a March filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company credited its full-year results for fiscal 2025 to a boost in AI licensing agreement revenue, alongside cost reduction and research growth efforts, according to their latest earnings release in mid-June. For its fiscal 2025 ended April 30, Wiley reported a jump in operating income to $221 million, compared to $52 million for the prior year period.
Wiley’s AI licensing revenue included an $18 million agreement with a “new multinational tech customer” the company executed in its Q4, CEO Matthew Kissner said during the company’s earning call, according to a transcript. Wiley saw $9 million from that deal realized in its latest quarter and is expecting to realize the remaining $9 million during its upcoming Q1, he said.
Among other steps to further integrate AI into its platform, the company has also inked partnerships with platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Perplexity, as well as its AI innovation program.
“R&D-intensive corporations are increasingly using AI-powered content and tools to speed up product development, identify breakthroughs and reduce cycle times. This is where Wiley comes in,” Kissner said during the company’s earnings call of its AI initiatives. “Our expansive content and data catalogs can be embedded into vertical-specific AI models and applications in technology, health care, information services, industrials and others to improve efficacy and impact.”
The company’s bid to incorporate AI comes as the wider publishing industry grapples with the impact of the technology on the space, including a current debate over how to apply copyright law to AI. Several suits have been filed against larger players such as Microsoft and OpenAI, while both lawmakers and publishers have weighed in on guidelines for the technology’s use. The U.S. Copyright Office issued a report in January noting “the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements.”
Wiley also released guidelines on AI usage in both research and writing, which aims to help answer “common questions about integrating AI effectively while safeguarding intellectual property rights and maintaining the integrity of your work,” according to the publisher’s website.
Source: https://www.cfodive.com/
