Our Team

Howard Ratner

Executive Director

Howard is the driving force behind CHOR Inc. and its first service, CHORUS.  Over the past two decades, he played a key role in developing innovative technology solutions that have transformed scholarly communications. He co-founded and chaired the not-for-profit ORCID – Open Researcher and Contributor ID system, and was active in the establishment of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and the founding and technical development of CrossRef and CLOCKSS. He was President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) from 2014-2015 and served on its board from 2010-2012 and 2013-2016. He is an active member of the Metadata 2020 and SCHOLIX initiatives and the STM Future Labs. Howard received the NFAIS Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture Award in 2012. He is a frequent speaker on digital production and new technology themes

Before joining CHOR, Howard was Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice-President, for Nature Publishing Group where he was in charge of global web and mobile development and operations, content management, production and manufacturing, and information technology across all NPG products.  Howard also held positions at Springer and John Wiley & Sons.

Janice Kuta

Business Development

Janice is an STM executive with extensive experience in growing and building revenue streams and engagement for scholarly communications and membership organizations. She is successful in sales and marketing strategy and operations, membership strategy and tactics for recruitment, engagement, and retention. Janice develops and maintains mutually beneficial partnerships and business relationships. She has global experience launching digital products and services and is a high-energy, hands-on leader with excellent change management and team-building skills.

Janice was Director of Membership for the International Association of STM Publishers and has held executive positions at Holtzbrinck, Springer, Blackwell Publishers, and Classical International. An organizer, speaker, and moderator at industry events, Janice served as Chair of AAP/PSP’s Executive Committee and is a member of SSP’s Membership Committee and the American Society of Association Executives.

Tara Packer

Program Management

Tara Packer serves as CHORUS Program Manager. She joined CHORUS by way of Nature, where she led the Author and Reviewer Services and Manuscript Systems team. She has over 30 years experience in digital and print product delivery, as well as system development and technology management. She has held positions at The Scientific World and Academic Press, where she served as Managing Editor for multiple journals, managing the peer-review processes, content management systems, and website design and implementations.

Mark Robertson

Asia-Pacific Development

Mark has joined the CHORUS team to grow our activity in Asia Pacific (APAC) with funders, publishers and institutions. For 36 years Mark lead Wiley’s and Blackwell Publishing’s research journal program in APAC as Publishing Director with overall country responsibility for Australia and Japan as Executive Director. He now brings this experience and networks in the region to CHORUS.  Mark was key to our recent expansion beyond the US helping instigate the new CHORUS partnerships in Japan and the pilot in Australia while with Wiley.

His other contributions to the publishing industry have included Board appointments with the Copyright Agency Limited, the Australian Publishers Association (APA) and the International Association of STM Publishers (STM), forming and chairing the Scholarly and Journal Committee for the APA and the Japan chapter for STM.