Joanna Prior shortlisted for Chief Executive of the Year at the Inclusive Awards 2026
Pan Macmillan CEO Joanna Prior OBE has been shortlisted for the Chief Executive of the Year Award at the Inclusive Awards 2026.
Selected from more than 1,000 nominated CEOs across the UK, the prestigious shortlisting recognises Prior’s transformative leadership, personal commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, and her work in fostering a culture of belonging across the publishing industry.
Prior appears on the shortlist alongside a number of other notable chief executives, including Dame Amanda Blanc (Aviva), Dame Carolyn McCall (ITV), Dan Hopkinson (ElectraLink), Dawn Carter-McDonald (Hackney Council), Mark Cubbon (Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust), Paul Philpott (Kia) and Rebecca Pearson (Bupa).
The Inclusive Awards celebrate leaders and organisations driving meaningful, systemic change across the UK. The Chief Executive of the Year category specifically honours leaders who demonstrate exemplary personal commitment to diversity and inclusion initiatives, valuing the unique perspectives of their employees while guiding their organisation to become an industry-leading, inclusive employer.
Prior, who was awarded an OBE for services to publishing and literacy in the 2026 King’s New Year Honours List, has consistently placed equity, accessibility, and community engagement at the core of Pan Macmillan’s mission.
Under her stewardship, Pan Macmillan has made significant internal investments in its people and workplace culture, including bringing recruitment in-house to ensure transparent hiring, as well as establishing living-wage apprenticeships and an accessible digital work experience programme. As an advocate for equitable reward, she prioritised lowest-paid colleagues with a minimum pay increase, alongside launching a transparent Career Framework and pay banding system. She has also overseen the launch of a mandatory Management Academy focused on unconscious bias and neurodiversity, alongside enhanced employee benefits including an industry-leading Equal Parenting Policy offering six months of full pay.
Externally, Prior has steered Pan Macmillan to become a founding signatory of the Publishers Association's Publishing Inclusion Pledge, while also continuing the publisher’s headline sponsorship of the Black British Book Festival.
Beyond her work at Pan Macmillan, Prior serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees at the National Literacy Trust. This role carries extra significance in 2026 as the UK celebrates the National Year of Reading, a landmark nationwide campaign dedicated to breaking down barriers to literacy, empowering underserved communities, and fostering a lifelong love of reading for all.
This year, Prior has actively championed literacy as a vital engine for social mobility. Speaking at the London Book Fair in March of this year, she highlighted the urgent need for books to remain a “map to an independent mind”. In the same keynote speech, she entreated the publishing industry to offer a “radical welcome” to readers by publishing broadly and without judgment to meet readers where they are, rather than where the industry expects them to be.
Prior is also a key driver behind the 'Libraries for Primaries' campaign, a high-profile collaboration that culminated in a landmark government commitment to install a library in every primary school in the UK, dismantling socioeconomic barriers to literacy before they can take root. She also oversees the Words for Work: Women in Leadership program, and is patron of the Women’s Prize Foundation.
The Inclusive Awards highlight individuals and organisations leading the way in equality and diversity. The winners will be announced at the official awards ceremony in November.
