Martin Neild began his career publishing in 1978 when he joined the Macmillan Publishers graduate training scheme in London. His first job was in Australia where he was Import Manager at Macmillan Australia looking after all the UK and USA agency titles. He then spent two years as Marketing Director and Publisher for Macmillan Boleswa, an educational publishing company based in Swaziland, before returning to London as Marketing Director for the newly-formed Macmillan Information Systems.
In 1986 he was appointed as Marketing and Publicity Director for Macmillan London, and worked on campaigns for authors such as Mary Wesley and Colin Dexter, Geoffrey Boycott and Ranulph Fiennes. In 1988 he moved to Pan as Marketing Director and remained there until 1993 when he was appointed as Managing Director of Hodder & Stoughton soon after the formation of the Hodder Headline Group. In 2001 he became Managing Director of Hodder Headline's trade publishing and is now responsible for the Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, John Murray, Hodder Religious and Irish publishing divisions. Since Hodder Headline became part of the Hachette Livre Group in September 2004, he has joined the Board of Hachette Livre UK.