Meet Hachette Audio

Ana Maria Allessi is the President and Publisher of Hachette Audio. She joined Hachette Book Group in 2022. An industry veteran with over 20 years of audiobook and digital content publishing and business development experience, Ana Maria is proud to support the Hachette Audio group as they record, market, publicize and distribute best-in-class audiobooks for more than 15 HBG imprints.

Ana Maria’s prior experience includes Publisher of Workman Audio; she spent most of her career at HarperCollinsPublishers, working as VP, Publisher of HarperAudio and also VP, Publisher of Harper Media, and VP, Digital Innovation. She has been a member of the Board of Directors for the Audio Publisher’s Association for eleven years, serving as President of the Board 2019-2023.

She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Kim Sayle is the Senior Vice President and Deputy Publisher of Hachette Audio.  After graduating from the University of Richmond, Kim turned her passion for books and publishing into her career.  She spent two summer internships at Harry Abrams which led to an Executive Assistant position at Henry Holt where her focus was book production and four-color printing.  Working on children’s books packaged with media at Book of the Month Club led her to Time Warner Audiobooks, which eventually became part of Hachette Book Group.  While Kim started at Hachette Audio as an Operations Manager, her role quickly grew, and she has now worked in the audiobook industry for more than twenty-five years. In her current role, Kim is responsible for the overall operations of Hachette Audio and thoroughly enjoys bringing the words of Hachette’s authors to life through audiobooks.

Kim lives in New Jersey and works of out of the New York offices of Hachette Book Group.

Laura Essex is the Director of Production at Hachette Audio. Her lifelong love of books led her to an English degree at the University of Georgia Honors College and the Columbia Publishing Course in Oxford. While working towards a full-time job in publishing, she interned with a bestselling author, an author website company, a university press, a literary agency, and a children’s imprint. She joined Workman Audio in 2021 and immediately fell in love with the audiobook format. At Hachette Audio, she worked on the production team before stepping into the new role of Audio Editor, where she created a pre-production process that increased visibility and collaboration between imprint editorial teams and Hachette Audio producers. She now serves as the primary production point person, translating author wishes and imprint business needs into strong production plans.

Laura lives in New York City and works out of the HBG New York office.

Tom Messina is the Director of Post Production at Hachette Audio. He studied Music Industry and Audio Production at SUNY Oneonta, where he developed the technical and creative audio skills that would eventually lead him to discover a love for storytelling through audiobooks. He began his career in audiobooks at John Marshall Media, where he quickly worked his way up to Project Manager. There, He managed a wide range of productions and collaborated with high-profile authors, publishers, and celebrity narrators. In 2024, Tom joined Hachette Audio, where he helped spearhead the implementation of an in-house post-production team. He continues to play a key role in refining post-production workflows and help Hachette grow and thrive in the evolving audiobook landscape.

Tom lives in Beacon, New York, and works out of Hachette’s New York office.