Helen Fraser

Dame Helen Jean Sutherland Fraser, (born 8 June 1949) is a British executive and publisher. From 2010 to 2016, she was the chief executive officer of the Girls' Day School Trust. She previously worked in publishing, and was an editor then managing director at a number of publishers including Heinemann and Penguin UK. Early life and education Fraser was born on 8 June 1949. Her father was George Sutherland Fraser, the poet and literary critic. She was educated at the Collegiate Girls' School, an all-girls grammar school in Leicester. She studied English language and literature at St Anne's College, Oxford, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1970; as per tradition, her BA was later promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Oxon) degree. Career After graduating from university in 1970, Fraser spent nine months teaching English in Paris, France. She then went travelling in Southeast Asia with the money she had earned teaching. In 1972, Fraser joined Methuen Publishing as a "trainee-cum-secretary". By her second year with the company she was commissioning books; one of her first was The Novels of Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee. In 1974, she left Methuen to start an independent publishing company with two colleagues: it was called Open Books, specialised in academic works, and was funded by Mitchell Beazley. Mitchell Beazley withdrew their funding from the company in 1976.