Bea Carvalho is Head of Books at Waterstones. Based at the Piccadilly Head Office, she is responsible for the company’s overall new titles strategy, and management of key campaigns including Book of the Month, key new releases, Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and Book of the Year. Bea joined the chain’s central buying team in 2011, initially as a Non-fiction buyer, and was made Head of Fiction in 2018. Prior to this, Bea worked as a bookseller in Waterstones bookshops around London including Hampstead, Oxford Street, and The Economists’ Bookshop. She has acted as a judge on several award panels including The Wainwright Prize, The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, The Evening Standard Stories Competition, and several prizes for unpublished writers.
