Interview

Paul Riley

Paul Riley is the General Manager, English Language Teaching Department for Oxford University Press in Japan. He has been with OUP for eight years, working previously as an editor and sales rep, and before that was a teacher and curriculum developer. He has an M.Ed. in TESOL from Temple University. He is from Massachusetts in the United States. He speaks fluent Japanese and is married with one child.

Paul spoke with ELT News editor Mark McBennett at the Tokyo English Language Book Fair at the end of October, 2002.

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Life before publishing

ELT: You've been in Japan for 15 years now. You must like it here! What brought you here in the first place? Did you have a job lined up before you arrived?
PR: Nope, I was a Sports Fishing Guide in Alaska for two seasons after graduating from University and came to Japan after realizing that winter work in Alaska was like the movie "The Shining." I had an "Issei" Japanese roommate in college who used to tell me to go to Japan, "because with blonde hair you can meet girls and get a job without any trouble." In the mid-80's he was right. In those pre-bubble days, any number of times I was offered English Teaching (and other) jobs just walking down the street.

What made you decide to take a post graduate course at Temple University?
I left Japan after a year-and-a-half of conversation school teaching, traveled around the world and then went back to the States with the intention of getting a "real" job. When I got there, however, I realized that I really liked Japan and decided to return, but do it right and be a proper teacher. Consequently, I entered Temple when I thought I had enough money to do so.

Did your Masters qualification open up new doors for you?
I'm not not sure if the Master's made me a better teacher, but it made me more confident in the classroom and with my colleagues. It also helped to get job interviews.

A new career

ELT News has interviewed many authors but you're the first person with a career in publishing. How did you get into this field?
I was managing the International Training Department at a major Japanese automobile manufacturer when the economic situation in the mid-90's forced them to cut back their training programs in ways that did not interest me. Around the same time I was approached by a friend in publishing and decided to take the plunge...

How important was your teaching experience when you moved to OUP?
I manage author tours, give teacher training workshops and manage all aspects of our Japan ELT operation. I can't imagine doing that if I couldn't speak with people on their own terms. My education and teaching experience give me the tools and confidence to do my job successfully.

How has your career developed within OUP? You spent over a year back in the US, didn't you?
Yes, from May 1996 to September 1997 I worked as an Editor in the East Asia Publishing Group based in the US. I worked on a number of projects including Tactics for Listening, Springboard and Good News, Bad News.

What different responsibilities did you take on as you moved up from ELT Sale Consultant to Editor to General Manager?
A rep is fairly independent and is basically in charge of his or her own area, but follows instructions from above. Becoming manager meant running the whole show; managing the people, the program and the finances.

I realized the difference shortly after returning. We had 20 people at National JALT in Hamamatsu in 1997. It was the second night of the conference and I had had someone make reservations for dinner, but I didn't know where the restaurant was. The Oxford contingency met in the lobby of the hotel and didn't move for 15 minutes. It was at that point that I realized that I had to get everyone to the target destination. That aspect of my job has never changed.

I noticed a lot of personnel shuffling between the major publishing houses in September. Is publishing a very 'itinerant' business in that sense?
Yes, there is a lot of movement for a number of reasons:
1) It is a very high-paced, high-energy job and people burn out quickly.
2) Most of the reps. are expatriates and some only consider a job in publishing as a short-term assignment to give them an interesting angle (i.e. non-teaching experience) on their resumes.
3) Experience and contacts are the most important attributes for being successful as an ELT rep. As with any sales or promotions job, knowing the systems, people and lay of the land are key qualities that publishers look for. Learning the product is the easy part. Therefore there is a lot of movement between companies.

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