Executive Editor Zareen Jaffery joined Kokila in January 2020, and will continue to publish books across age groups. She has acquired and edited a number of New York Times bestselling, award-winning, and critically acclaimed books over the course of her publishing career.

Most recently, she was an Executive Editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers where she worked with authors including Jenny Han, Lupita Nyong’o, Mary H.K. Choi, Siobhan Vivian, Hena Khan, Lilliam Rivera, Hanna Alkaf, Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, and S.K. Ali. She is the founding editor of Salaam Reads, an imprint at Simon & Schuster which launched in 2016 about Muslim children and families. Prior to Simon & Schuster, Zareen worked on commercial teen fiction at HarperCollins Children’s Books and adult fiction and non-fiction at Hyperion books (Walt Disney/ABC). Zareen served for two years as a member of the Children’s Book Council (CBC) Diversity Committee and was appointed co-chair of the Diversity within ALSC (Association for Library Services to Children) Task Force from 2016-2017. She is a graduate of New York University, and currently lives in California.