Can Pearson's new CEO turn the company around?

Pearson, the educational publishing group, endured seven profit warnings in seven years under its previous boss. Can new CEO Andy Bird steady the ship? Matthew Partridge reports.

This week Andy Bird took over as CEO of education-publishing firm Pearson with shareholders “close to open revolt”, says Christopher Williams in The Sunday Telegraph. One big bone of contention is his pay, with Bird in line for up to $9.4m over the next three years.

Other shareholders are “angry” with his plans to run the FTSE 100 firm remotely, splitting his time between his home in Malibu and New York, thousands of miles away from Pearson’s London headquarters. As a result, Bird is under “extreme pressure” to overturn “years of disappointment” that included a run of “seven profit warnings in seven years”.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri