John Mitchinson

John is a writer and publisher. He was Waterstone’s first marketing director before becoming a publisher at the Harvill Press and then Cassell & Co. His authors included the Beatles, Michael Palin, Richard Ford, Haruki Murakami and a woman who knitted with doghair. In 2001 he joined TV producer John Lloyd to set up QI Ltd (www.qi.com). They have recently produced the tenth series of the BBC TV show, and their series of bestselling QI books have been translated into 29 languages. John is also a Vice-President of the Hay Festival and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He writes a weekly QI column in the Saturday Telegraph. His latest venture is co-founding Unbound (www.unbound.co.uk), the UK’s first crowd-funded publishing house which won the 2011 Futurebook Innovation Award for Best Startup in 2011.