Education Technology · Profile from Education Technology Research Companion
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Wiley)
A 200-year-old, family-controlled publisher that spent the 2010s trying to become a digital education services company through online program management (Deltak, Learning House) and workforce training (mthree), then sold most of those businesses in 2023–24 and refocused on research publishing, where it now also licenses its scholarly content to AI companies.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1807, New York City (Charles Wiley's print shop in lower Manhattan)
- Founders
- Charles Wiley; his son John Wiley gave the firm its name (John Wiley & Sons from 1865)
- Headquarters
- Hoboken, New Jersey (since 2002)
- Ownership / structure
- Public: NYSE WLY (Class A) and WLYB (Class B). The Wiley family controls the company through Class B shares, which elect a majority of the board
- Leadership (2026)
- Matthew Kissner, President and CEO (interim from October 2023, permanent from 2024); Christina Van Tassell, CFO; Wiley family members on the board
- Segment and buyer
- Research (journals, open access, platforms; buyers are university libraries, consortia, funders and authors paying article charges, and corporate/AI licensees) and Learning (higher-ed courseware such as WileyPLUS and zyBooks, professional books including For Dummies); learners are mainly university students, researchers and professionals
- Scale
- Fiscal 2026 (year to April 30, 2026) revenue $1,677m, flat including divestitures; Research $1,130m (+5%); ~2,000 journals; AI revenue ~$49m in FY2026 and >$110m cumulative (company-reported)
- Capital raised / valuation / market cap
- Public since 1962 (OTC; NYSE listing 1995); market capitalization roughly $2–2.5bn in 2025–26 (verify); FY2026 free cash flow $195m and a record $174m returned to shareholders (company-reported)
- Signature moves
- Blackwell acquisition (2007), Deltak OPM (2012), Atypon (2016), Learning House (2018), mthree (2020), Hindawi (2021); failures and reversals: Hindawi paper-mill retractions and brand retirement (2023), sale of University Services for a $110m base price after ~$540m invested (reported), exit from workforce training (2024); AI content licensing from 2024
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2007
Acquires Blackwell Publishing
Acquisition
2012
Acquires Deltak OPM
Acquisition / strategic pivot
2016
Acquires Atypon
Acquisition
2018
Acquires Learning House
Acquisition
2020
Acquires mthree Talent Business
Acquisition
2021
Acquires Hindawi
Acquisition
2023
Hindawi Paper Mill Crisis and Brand Retirement
Restructuring (crisis response, brand retirement)
2023
Sells University Services and Divestitures
Divestiture / restructuring
2024
AI Content Licensing
AI launch / partnership (content licensing)