Alice founded Lantana to make sure her mixed-race nephew, Ryan, was going to grow up reading books in which the characters looked like him. She can often be found walking through muddy fields or sitting with a cup of tea dreaming up how Lantana can reach new generations of young readers. She steers the Lantana ship, managing our team, our partnerships and our freelancers, and oversees the commissioning of Lantana's titles. A former academic, and now a frequent keynote speaker across Europe and mentor to young publishers, Alice is the 2017 winner of the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize for women in publishing.

Christofere loves reading voices from around the world and discovering what unites us. She grew up on a diet of fantasy and sci-fi because these books/films were full of diverse characters who had absolutely nothing in common, physically or culturally, but somehow were revered in their societies and had exhilarating adventures. Luckily, fiction has evolved tremendously since then and she is finally starting to see herself in other genres. Christofere has a varied background in publishing having worked in academia and education, across editorial and production. She started working on children's books during her time at Amnesty International UK. She is looking forward to taking Lantana’s list in new directions, commissioning exciting fantasy and sci-fi, and rich, strong stories across fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels.

Katrina grew up wishing the strong and brilliant girls she admired in the books she loved looked more like her. Then as a mother to a beautiful girl with Down syndrome, she longed to see more books with disabled heroes. A former academic and freelance editor, she travelled to children’s libraries around the world in search of inclusive stories – until she found her place at Lantana. Now, she creates opportunities for writers to tell the inclusive stories she was looking for, where children who don’t see themselves in books are the stars. Katrina commissions and edits a variety of genres for our list. She particularly loves stories featuring Asian and Southeast Asian experiences and stories that explore disability with sensitivity and care.

Kristel often says she was raised on stories, particularly Disney and Shakespeare, and from a young age she saw herself missing in both. As she grew up, she fell in love with stories of all kinds, theatre and film, but especially books. Because of this, she opened her own press, focusing on representation in fantasy and magical realism. Now, when she isn’t shouting about Lantana’s books, you can find her studying for a Publishing MA at UCL and continuing to carve out a place for unheard voices.