Our Leadership Team
Billy Elliott
CEO
Bill Elliott has been with Author Solutions since 2009. He has held multiple roles within finance and operations at both the Bloomington, Indiana, and Cebu, Philippines, offices. Prior to Author Solutions, Bill worked at CB Richard Ellis.
Bill holds an MBA from the Farmer School of Business at Miami University and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from DePauw University.
George A. Burnett
Chief Executive Officer
Prior to joining Author Solutions, George served as Executive Vice Chairman of Academic Partnerships, which is a professional services firm providing marketing and sales support to public universities’ online degree programs. George’s business experience includes being President/CEO, Northcentral University, Chief Marketing Officer, Qwest Communications, VP Marketing Services, AT&T, and SVP, D’Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, a global advertising agency. George has served as a Director of Cott Corporation, Penn Foster, and Purchasing Power.
George earned his BA from Dartmouth College and returned to Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School for his MBA.
BILL BECHER
Chief Operating Officer
Bill has led service organizations from a variety of executive positions throughout his career. His leadership background includes serving as an Associate Partner at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), a National Partner at Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, and the Vice President of Professional Services and Program Management for Powerway, Inc.
Bill earned a degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame. As the Chief Operating Officer of Author Solutions, Bill leads the Global Fulfillment Department—production, design, editorial, customer service, author marketing services, digital content management, and distribution—and oversees Human Resources, the Program Management Office, the Legal Department and our international office.
joe steinbach
Chief Information Officer
With Joe’s leading success in growing start-ups and small businesses to maturity comes expert-level experience in leading business strategy and execution, market expansion, and partnership development for company escalation. Most recently, Joe served as the CEO for the cyber security company, Offensive Security.
At Author Solutions, Joe’s role as Chief Information Officer oversees technology strategy and delivery. During his previous 16-year tenure with Author Solutions, Joe held roles from Chief Operating Officer for iUniverse to Cebu General Manager and VP Strategic Partnerships.
Joe is a Purdue University (MA) and a University of Utah (BA, BS) graduate.
Merrell Rio
Assoc. Vice President of Operations & General Manager, Cebu
Merrell has served as the Associate Vice President and General Manager for Philippine Operations since November 2015. Since joining the company in 2004, Merrell has held senior level positions within the company, particularly in Customer Service and Fulfillment of Publishing Services.
Prior to joining Author Solutions, Merrell was a Division Manager of Innodata (NASDAQ: INOD), a global digital services and solutions company, which is based in Bergen County, New Jersey. He held various senior management positions in Planning, Production, Quality, and Client Services from 1999 to 2004 at its Philippine facility. He has in-depth background and experience in Project Management, Operations Management, and Customer Service.
Merrell holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cebu Institute of Technology. He is a licensed engineer and a member of the Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Melissa Bauer
General Counsel
Larry Smith
President, Six-Word Memoirs
Called on “a quest to spark the creativity in everyone” by Oprah Magazine, Larry Smith is the founder of Author Solutions’ most recent acquisition, The Six-Word Memoir® Project. Founded by Smith in 2007, The Six-Word Memoir Project is a bestselling series of ten books, board game, live event program, and a global phenomenon found in classrooms, conferences, and corporate settings alike. Larry speaks on the power of personal storytelling across the world. He has been invited to work with teams at Twitter, Levi’s, JPMorgan Chase, Snapchat, Dell, Shutterfly, ESPN and Google; nonprofits including the Zen Hospice Project and Dress For Success, as well as foundations, philanthropies, and schools.
Prior to founding the Six-Word Memoir project, Larry was articles editor of Men’s Journal, executive editor of Yahoo! Internet Life, senior editor at ESPN The Magazine, writer and editor at Dave Eggers’ MIGHT Magazine, and founding editor of P.O.V. and editor-in-chief of its sister publication, EGG. Larry’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, ESPN Magazine, Popular Science, Men’s Health, Salon, Slate, Buzzfeed, and has contributed essays to many anthologies, including Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion. He lives in Berkeley, CA, with his wife, the writer Piper Kerman, and their son.