Matthew Kissner is Wiley’s 15th President and CEO, a job he’s held since July 2024. He has been with Wiley in a leadership, board, or consulting role for over 20 years, including as Group Executive and Board Chair. He also served previously as Interim CEO in 2017 and 2023-2024.
His extensive experience includes leadership positions with Pitney Bowes, Bankers Trust, Citibank and Morgan Stanley, and he has been a personal equity operating partner specializing in business, financial and healthcare services.
Matt can be a member of the Board Executive Committee of the Regional Plan Association, a non-profit urban research and advocacy organization. Matt earned each a Bachelor of Science in Education and Master of Business Administration from Recent York University.
Wiley, founded in 1807, is a world leader in research and education, providing revolutionary solutions and services that help individuals tackle the world’s most pressing challenges. With a wealthy history spanning over two centuries, Wiley produces books, journals, and encyclopedias in each print and electronic formats, alongside a wide selection of online products, services, training materials, and academic resources for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students.
Committed to advancing knowledge and fostering success, Wiley empowers learners and professionals to remodel complex challenges into opportunities for growth. All over the world, Wiley breaks down barriers for innovators, enabling them to drive discoveries, adapt workforces, and encourage future generations.
With over 20 years of experience at Wiley, what personal and skilled principles have guided your leadership approach, particularly now because the everlasting CEO?
Constructing a broad perspective has at all times been essential skilled principle of mine. Early in my profession, I did two things that actually helped me.
First, I attempted to check myself in areas where I wasn’t comfortable – I actively got out of my comfort zone. I used to be trained in finance and accounting, but after I got into the business world, marketing looked really interesting to me, so I got involved in it to see if I liked it. That approach helped me test my assumptions and learn more about myself.
Second, I volunteered for a variety of projects as a approach to study other parts of the corporate. That gave me a probability to study all of the areas that I didn’t see normally in the midst of my job. It also gave people in other areas a probability to fulfill me. So, I not only learned a variety of latest things, but I also built a network. And that served me well. (As an aside, at Wiley, we recently rolled out an internal ‘talent marketplace’ that mirrors my experience. It matches colleagues on the lookout for development opportunities beyond their day jobs with managers across the corporate on the lookout for a fresh perspective or extra pair of hands, and it’s been quite successful.)
As I developed into more senior leadership roles, maintaining personal connections has been a tenet of mine. I do a few of my best learning after I’m out talking to our customers, hearing from our colleagues firsthand, and connecting with experts. I feel being available, open, and curious is crucial for leaders as they navigate an increasingly complex landscape.
I even have at all times tried to drive into the teams and organizations I’ve led a bias for motion. People can get bogged down in planning. I’ve encouraged colleagues to get comfortable with imperfect data. Assuming you’re not making a call that’s massively dangerous, if you will have 80% of the knowledge you’re thinking that you wish, make the choice, then be prepared to learn and respond.
For me, I assume it boils right down to this: at all times be learning. From other people. Out of your direct experience. From trying latest things. And from taking some calculated risks.
Wiley has a 200+ yr legacy in publishing. What do you see as the important thing challenges and opportunities for integrating modern AI solutions while respecting this wealthy history?
As considered one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly research, Wiley has been pivotal from the economic revolution to the knowledge age over our 217-year history. We’ve got successfully adapted to changing markets and various economic cycles over the past two centuries. Evolving the corporate while respecting our history is nothing latest to us. No company exists for that long without being resourceful and resilient.
Now, Wiley is starting to play a critical role within the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Over 80% of our revenue today comes from digital content, so now we have already largely transformed our product. Our AI strategy focuses on developing licensing and application revenue opportunities, improving productivity, and driving publishing innovation. Regarding AI licensing and applications opportunities, our high-quality content and data in science, learning, and innovation are foundational for training large language models and in demand for vertical-specific models in industries like tech, pharma, and data services. When it comes to productivity, we’re leveraging AI to drive efficiency in our office operations and customer support. Through AI-based tools, we’re transforming how we publish by shortening authoring effort and time, increasing editorial productivity, and improving workflow. Safeguarding research integrity is clearly a much bigger challenge now, but now we have deployed AI into our research publishing platform at the purpose of article submission to discover any potentially compromised content which will require further investigation.
Could you elaborate on Wiley’s AI Partnership Program? What makes this co-innovation approach unique in comparison with other AI initiatives within the publishing industry?
This initiative goals to develop latest AI applications, assistants, and agents in partnership with revolutionary corporations. Our goal is to empower researchers and practitioners, driving the pace, efficiency, and accuracy of scientific discovery. A brand new Wiley survey revealed that 69% of researchers need to sustain with or be ahead of the curve in AI adoption of their field. At the identical time, they require higher tools to streamline their research and are on the lookout for guidance and training about use AI responsibly and effectively. This latest program is designed to handle these challenges. Our approach is exclusive because we mix Wiley’s authoritative content, expertise and market access with start-ups and scale-ups’ capability and technology resources to deliver specialized AI solutions, ultimately improving the efficiency and quality of research worldwide.
With researchers searching for AI solutions tailored to their specific needs, how does Wiley work with its partners to develop and implement these specialized tools?
The information we gathered indicated researchers require higher tools to streamline their work. Our latest AI Partnership Program exemplifies how we’re addressing this challenge. It combines Wiley’s high-quality scientific content, global academic and institutional partnerships, market research, and brand strength with cutting-edge AI applications from partner corporations. Each partner brings unique expertise, and, combined with Wiley’s vast database of data and experience, we imagine we are able to create the specialized tools researchers need for AI solutions.
One in every of your first AI collaborations is with Potato, an AI research assistant. Are you able to share insights on how this partnership supports Wiley’s vision for AI-driven innovation in scientific discovery?
Potato is an AI research assistant powered by peer-reviewed literature, enabling high-quality science. They assist researchers plan and run experiments using chat-based, generative-AI tools built from large language models, refining them to enhance accuracy by incorporating scientific literature references. Wiley’s extensive portfolio of publications will significantly expand their available references. Our goal is to collaborate with Potato to advance the appliance and reproducibility of science with tools that deliver well-defined research protocols. Wiley has also invited additional partners to affix this system, with preference given to those targeting Wiley’s strongest disciplines: life sciences, pharmaceuticals, health science, food science, engineering, chemistry, materials, and veterinary science. Initial AI applications or tools we anticipate developing with latest partners may include research assistants, information extraction and evaluation applications, and analytical decision support tools, amongst others.
Wiley’s AI Development Principles deal with human oversight, trustworthiness, and accountability. How are these principles upheld inside the practical points of your AI initiatives?
Our principles were developed specifically to guide our AI initiatives and assure our authors, partners, customers, and stakeholders that we take these matters very seriously. We apply these principles throughout our AI initiatives. We imagine publishers have a responsibility to create standards, processes, and tools that work with integrity, bridging the gap between AI innovation and publishing authenticity. To that end, we’re working to determine a responsible marketplace for AI licensing. We’re also focused on creating practical guidelines that ensure researchers disclose AI tool usage, evolve peer review processes, and maintain the integrity of scholarly work. Our approach involves proactive collaboration, establishing clear ethical frameworks, and ensuring that AI serves the scholarly community’s values of rigor and trust.
How does Wiley plan to make sure its AI tools are fair, transparent, and inclusive, especially regarding bias and ethical considerations in publishing?
One in every of the 4 AI principles that we’ve laid out as grounding our AI journey is “Transparency and Trustworthiness.” That could be a core element of our AI use and development.
We’re dedicated to protecting mental property and identifying piracy and copyright violations. We actively collaborate with other organizations to define standards and tackle AI-created content integrity challenges. Our goal is to align with industry best practices and contribute to a shared culture of ethical AI use in scholarly publishing. We’re also committed to being transparent with our AI use and development, subject to the terms of agreements now we have with others.
We’re working to make sure AI tools enhance quite than replace human research capabilities. This involves creating collaborative ecosystems across publishers, institutions, and regulatory bodies that support the goals of open science, transparency, and reproducibility while addressing concerns similar to data privacy and potential algorithmic bias.
Because the industry rapidly adopts AI, where do you see Wiley’s role in shaping AI best practices and ethical standards across the publishing landscape?
Research integrity is driving significant transformation in scientific and scholarly publishing. Wiley is on the forefront, developing next-generation detection software, creating ethical frameworks for AI-assisted authoring, and establishing processes to take care of the integrity of scholarly work. We’re engaged in policy thought leadership all over the world, working actively to assist regulators and legislators develop sensible, dynamic, and forward-looking AI policies that strike the best balance on issues starting from ethics to mental property. Because the lines between human-authored and machine-created content blur, evolving regulatory and policy positions are required.
In your view, how can AI reshape the longer term of educational publishing? What specific trends or technologies do you’re thinking that shall be most impactful?
AI is poised to significantly reshape the longer term of educational publishing by enhancing various points of the method, from research to dissemination.
AI is driving efficiency and innovation. In research, it excels at processing and analyzing large volumes of knowledge, uncovering patterns that may be nearly unattainable for human researchers to detect. In academic publishing, AI is streamlining the publishing process by helping improve the efficiency of processes similar to plagiarism detection, peer review and reference checking.
AI-powered tools are also enhancing the accuracy and accessibility of research. For instance, AI will help be sure that academic publishing stays unbiased, objective, and transparent by addressing ongoing concerns about fairness.
Through AI-based tools, Wiley is transforming how we publish by shortening authoring effort and time, increasing editorial productivity, and improving workflows. Wiley has also been evaluating the potential applications of generative AI tools that may support authoring by helping evaluate writing quality, rewriting manuscripts for higher readability, suggesting research topics, and producing initial drafts of plain language summaries for discoverability.
Finally, for emerging researchers and authors, what message would you share about Wiley’s commitment to using AI to support and enhance their work?
Wiley was considered one of the primary movers within the AI space for publishers. Before we made that move, we debated it, taking a look at it from all points, particularly the risks. And we concluded that AI was going to be here, with us or without us. We couldn’t stop it—it might be like attempting to stop a wave. So, we determined one of the best plan of action was to lean into it and learn. We’ve committed to that for the sake of our customers, and we’ve made tremendous progress.
But we all know we must move even faster because the following wave of AI goes to provide us a chance to boost the interaction with our content. So, we’re working to shorten our cycle time, using AI internally for editorial and research fraud detection, and giving all colleagues access to AI to make their jobs easier. The subsequent step is moving into latest product development and experimenting with ways to enhance the interaction with our content and see how we are able to use AI to reinvent a few of the products now we have.
