ABOUT ME

Kristen McLean is the Executive Director of Business Development at The NPD Group, a global research and data company, where she sits within the Books | Entertainment practice. Kristen is responsible for developing new client relationships for existing products, as well as the creation of new initiatives that expand NPD's value to its publishing and entertainment clients. (The Books Group, and its lead product BookScan were purchased from AC Nielsen in 2017. )

Kristen is a twenty-five year veteran of the publishing industry, where her career has spanned many roles including frontline retailing, merchandising, buying, field sales, marketing, and business development which gives her an unusually deep perspective as a market analyst. She is the in-house Children's, Comic & Graphic Novel, and cross-platform Licensing specialist, and she works with a wide range of clients including Disney Interactive, Hasbro, Mattel, Scholastic, HarperCollins, National Geographic, Crossway, Lifeway, Tyndale House, Zondervan, Penguin Random House, Nickelodeon, and many others. Her current initiatives include the rollout of the BookScan License Reporting Service, which tracks more than 4,000 brand licenses on a weekly basis in BookScan, and a larger initiative to provide a 360 degree view of brand performance within NPD's wider Entertainment Group. She speaks broadly to industry leaders about trends in the Book and Media industries.

Prior to joining Nielsen/NPD she was the founder and CEO of Bookigee, an innovative data and analytics start-up in the publishing space. Before founding her own company, Kristen was the Executive Director of the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC), a non-profit trade association founded in 1984 that networks the children’s book industry. Under Kristen’s leadership, ABC merged with its sister association, the American Booksellers Association (ABA) in 2011, where its work continues. Find out more at www.bookweb.org. 

Kristen is deeply interested in the confluence of emerging consumer behavior, technology, literacy, and global transformation in the Digital Age.