Paula Kahn joined Longman Group in 1967 as a desk editor in the ELT department. She worked with great authors such as Brian Abbs and Louis Alexander and developed the new markets of South America and subsequently Japan, China and Eastern Europe. In 1990 she was appointed Chief Executive of the Longman Group.
In the early '70s she had worked with colleagues to set up a union branch for publishing, in ASTMS, and later was part of the group organising the Bentinck Group research and report. She was committed to giving staff a voice and to getting a more diverse workforce. Later she led the World Learning Network project and was Managing Director of Phaidon Press.
After retirement from publishing she became a Chair in the NHS and then in Social Housing. Through this period she maintained her interest in diversity, and in the visual arts, first at the Institute of International Visual Arts, then at Camden Arts Centre and now at the Stuart Hall Foundation. Paula was a recipient of WiP's Pandora Award in 1988.