Executive Bios
Nion McEvoy, chairman and CEO of The McEvoy Group, joined Chronicle Books in 1986. He became editor-in-chief of the adult trade division until the acquisition of the company in February of 2000 by The McEvoy Group. He previously worked in the business affairs departments of the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills and of Wescom Productions. McEvoy is currently chairman of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s (SAAM) Board of Commissioners and serves on the boards of Aperture, San Francisco Film Society, SFMOMA, and the UCSF Foundation. He is also on the accessions committees at SFMOMA and SAAM. McEvoy is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and of UC Hastings College of the Law.
Jack Jensen, president of The McEvoy Group, joined Chronicle Books in 1977 as sales representative for the western states after working as a retail bookseller for five years. At the time, Chronicle Books had only five employees and released twelve titles per year. As Chronicle Books grew, so did Jensen’s role and influence. He has served the company in a number of positions, including sales and marketing director, general manager, and, from 1991 to 2016, president of Chronicle Books. In 2017, Jensen was named president of The McEvoy Group, which owns Chronicle Books, Princeton Architectural Press, Galison/Mudpuppy, and I See Me!. Jensen has served on the faculties of the Stanford University Publishing Course for Professionals, the University of Denver Publishing Institute, and has been a presenter at the annual UCLA Entertainment Symposium. In addition he has served on the board of the Bay Area Book Council, and completed business courses in the Executive Education Program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Married with two children, Jensen received a BFA in Theater Arts from Fort Wright College. His favorite book is John Barth’s The Floating Opera.
Tyrrell Mahoney became president of Chronicle Books in January 2017. She had previously been vice president of Sales, Marketing & Business Development for Chronicle Books, a role she had held since 2007. Tyrrell first joined Chronicle Books in 1996, where she started as a sales & marketing associate, and has also served the company as national accounts manager, trade sales director, and executive director of Sales. Prior to joining Chronicle Books, Tyrrell worked as the circulation manager at Mother Jones magazine and as an account executive at Epsilon Data Management, a division of American Express. Tyrrell is a graduate of Boston University with a BA in English. She is a long-time resident of San Francisco.
Tom Fernald, executive vice-president and chief operating officer, joined Chronicle Books in 1998 as executive director. His first major project at Chronicle Books had great potential to be his last as the company was put up for sale shortly after he joined the company. Fortunately, The McEvoy Group prevailed as the successful acquirer, and the spirit of the company thrives to this day. Prior to joining Chronicle Books, Tom was vice president and publisher of Down East Books and Silver Quill, the book divisions of his family’s publishing company in Maine where he was responsible for all aspects of the book publishing program for ten years. He also worked in industrial construction management for several years early in his career where his daily interactions were far less pleasant than those he now enjoys in publishing. Somewhere in the middle of these years he spent an entire ski season at Vail Resort in Colorado working exceptionally hard at being a ski bum, but was ultimately unsuccessful at sustaining the lifestyle.
Christine Carswell, publisher, joined Chronicle Books in 1994 as executive editor of the adult trade division, thanks to a chance encounter at the local supermarket’s fish counter. She has more than thirty years of experience in publishing in the U.S. and her native U.K., where she started as a secretary at Chatto & Windus/The Hogarth Press, quickly becoming deputy managing director of the company and publisher of The Hogarth Press. After moving to the U.S., she became a book packager, managed a computer publishing company, and worked at Ten Speed Press before joining Chronicle Books, where she was named publisher in 2007.