Sturrock to chair Osprey Publishing

Philip Sturrock has become chairman of military publisher Osprey Publishing, succeeding Robin Black. The company has also announced that William Shepherd, who has been managing director since 2001, will retire at the end of the year.

Shepherd will be scaling down his involvement from 1st May 2007 prior to retiring at 31st December 2007. Rebecca Smart, who joined Osprey nine years ago, and has been both product development director and operations director prior to her current role as managing director Osprey Publishing Oxford, will succeed Shepherd at the end of the year.

Philip Sturrock--a publishing veteran--left his last post as chairman and chief executive of Continuum in November last year, following a "clear difference of strategy" between Sturrock and Continuum's new shareholders. Black, who remains on the board, represents Botts and Co, the London-based private equity house, which is Osprey's major shareholder.

Osprey was founded in 1968 and became part of George Philip Ltd, the map publishers in the late 1970s. George Philip was acquired by Reed in 1988 and Osprey was bought out of Reed by Botts in 1998. Its output includes 140 new titles each year and a backlist of over 1500 titles. It has a turnover of around £6m of which almost 60% is in the US.