Lara Heimert
Lara Heimert is SVP and Publisher of the Basic Books Group, which is comprised of four imprints: Basic Books, Public Affairs, Seal Press and Bold Type Books. Lara joined Basic Books in 2005 and has been Publisher since 2012. She added Seal Press to her portfolio in 2018, and in 2020 formed Basic UK in partnership with John Murray Press. Prior to joining Hachette, she was publisher of the trade division at Yale University Press, where she was also the history editor.
Over the course of her publishing career, Lara has acquired and edited numerous New York Timesbestsellers, including Edmund Morgan’s Benjamin Franklin, Ahmed Rashid’s Taliban, Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands, Serhii Plokhy’s The Gates of Europe, Leonard Sax’s The Collapse of Parenting, John Bradshaw’s Cat Sense, and Victor Davis Hanson’s The Dying Citizen.
Lara graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in English Literature and Women’s Studies, and also did graduate work at the University of Cambridge and Yale University. Prior to joining the publishing industry, she worked as a bicycle tour guide in Europe.
She currently lives with her husband and son in New York City.