Stephanie Hitchcock joined Simon Element in November 2023 from Atria Books where, as a Senior Editor, she published notable successes like Tiago Forte’s Wall Street Journal bestseller Building a Second Brain; Amy Edmondson’s Right Kind of Wrong, which was shortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year; Say the Right Thing by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow; and Why We Meditate by Daniel Goleman and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Prior to joining Atria in late 2019, Stephanie served as an Editor at Harper and Harper Business, where she edited bestselling and award-winning titles including The Person You Mean to Be by Dolly Chugh, Ultralearning by Scott H. Young, and You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham. Stephanie is looking for new ideas and fresh voices that meet our moment of rapid technological and cultural shifts in fields like entrepreneurship, management, innovation, leadership, technology, and investigative business journalism.
Kimberly Meilun is an Editor at Simon Acumen acquiring in business and economics. A fierce believer in the power of business to transform lives, she is particularly interested in prescriptive books about entrepreneurship (books for people who want to build things), methodologies for personal success, creativity, personal finance, and women in business. She loves working with authors who have created their own community of readers and followers, as well as those with a distinct voice and point of view. Some of her authors include keynote speaker and author of Rejection Proof Jia Jiang, overspending coach and host of The Money Love Podcast Paige Pritchard, and financial literacy coach, profit strategist, and founder of Balance CFO Jamie Trull.
Prior to joining Simon & Schuster, Kimberly worked at PublicAffairs, acquiring advice-driven business books by experts in their category. Some of her authors included Emma Hayes, the head coach of the US Women’s Soccer Team; Harvard Business School professor and startup operations expert Julia Austin; and journalist and creator of the "Too Ambitious" newsletter Stefanie O’Connell Rodriguez. Before PublicAffairs, Kimberly worked at Portfolio where she published bestselling books by innovative thinkers and leaders, such as award-winning DEI coach Deanna Singh and founder of the Bail Project Robin Steinberg.
Hailing from Rhode Island, Kimberly studied nonfiction writing at Brown University, where she founded a small press and a public policy think tank for undergraduates.
Karina Leon joined Simon Acumen as an Associate Editor in 2024. She began her editorial career at Little, Brown Spark, where she worked with authors including Arlan Hamilton, Ashley Goodall, Roy Peter Clark, and Karen Yin. Karina is drawn to expert-driven books in the fields of personal finance, leadership, personal success, and entrepreneurship that offer new insights that help readers thrive at work and beyond. She is particularly excited about books in the business space by and for those of marginalized backgrounds.
