Simon Littlewood was born to British parents in South Africa’s Cape Winelands. He was educated as a chorister scholar at Bristol Cathedral School, and at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read Classics, played sport, and sang in several choirs, most notably the Schola Cantorum, the university chamber choir.

Simon’s professional career has lain in book publishing; now a consultant to a range of industry and government organisations around the world, he began as a graduate recruit at Macmillan Publishers, where his later roles included that of managing the Grove’s Dictionaries of Music division. He worked in a variety of senior management positions for firms including Phaidon Press, Hodder Headline, and Random House where he ran an award-winning International Division and led the start-up of Random House India. He also chaired the Publisher’s Association’s International Board, and has represented the UK on the executives of the International Publishers Association and the Federation of European Publishers.