Margarita Lygizou

IWA Publishing

I am Director of Sales at IWA Publishing, where I lead global institutional and corporate revenue, strategic partnerships, commercial operations and market development. I have spent my career working at the intersection of publishing, marketing, sales, digital platforms, and member and customer value, which gives me a practical understanding of the pressures facing learned and scholarly publishers.

My experience is particularly relevant to the Membership & Marketing Chair role because I have had to make value visible to very different audiences: libraries, consortia, institutions, corporate partners, authors, editors, societies, internal teams and Board stakeholders. At IWA Publishing, I have led global sales and marketing activity across more than 50 countries, developed major institutional and consortia agreements, supported open access, Subscribe to Open and Read & Publish models, and advised on commercial strategy, pricing and revenue forecasting.

I am standing because I believe ALPSP’s membership offer matters more than ever. Organisations across the sector are dealing with open access transition, funding pressure, changing customer expectations, technology decisions, international growth opportunities and the need to show clear value to their communities. Coming from a smaller learned-society publisher, I understand that membership value has to be practical, visible and worth the time of busy teams who are often managing strategic change with limited capacity. I also recognise that larger publishers face their own challenges around complexity, scale, internal alignment, customer communication and maintaining trust across diverse stakeholder groups.

A significant part of my recent work has involved demonstrating value through transition between different publishing and commercial models. That has meant explaining not only what customers receive, but why participation matters, how different models affect authors and institutions, and how value can be communicated credibly across reading, publishing, partnership and mission-based benefits. This experience would help me support ALPSP’s work in articulating a membership proposition that is clear, relevant and responsive to the realities facing different types of member organisations.

If elected, I would work closely with the Committee, Vice Chair, Board, CEO and ALPSP team to coordinate activity, support delivery of the annual priorities, and help translate ALPSP’s strategic direction into effective membership and marketing activity. I would bring structure, energy and a delivery focused approach to committee work, including clear priorities, effective meetings, appropriate working groups, good communication with members, and useful reporting back to the Board.

I would also bring a strong commercial and analytical lens. My current role includes responsibility for global institutional and corporate revenue, commercial operations, performance tracking and market development. That experience would support the Committee’s need to maintain an effective overview of activity, understand the financial implications of membership and marketing work, and promote ALPSP’s value proposition in a way that is credible, practical and relevant to organisations of different sizes and business models.

I would act as a positive spokesperson for Membership and Marketing, representing the Committee at ALPSP meetings and external events as required. I would bring a collaborative style, but also a clear focus on outcomes: strengthening member engagement, widening participation across the scholarly publishing community, improving visibility of ALPSP’s benefits, and ensuring that membership and marketing activity supports ALPSP’s wider strategic development.

I would be pleased to contribute actively to ALPSP’s Board and to help strengthen a relevant, visible and valuable membership offer for the learned and scholarly publishing community.