Jane Friedman’s decision to step down from her CEO position at book publishing company HarperCollins led to President Brian Murray’s announcement of taking over the duties of chief executive.

"We are enormously grateful for her contributions over the past 10 years and understand her desire to seek new challenges at this point in her career," said the company’s owner Rupert Mudoch in a statement, according to the Associated Press. He also added that the resignation filed on Wednesday was effective immediately.

Before joining the team at HarperCollins, Jane Friedman, now 62, has had several other demanding positions over the years, such as executive vice president of the Random House Inc. and the Knopf Publishing Group, also founder and president of Random House Audio Publishing and publisher of Vintage Books.

41-year-old Brian Murray began his work with the international book publishing company in 1997 and held a number of posts over the years until being named CEO of HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand in 2001. He then returned to the United States as group president in 2004 and was named president of HarperCollins in July 2007.

The AP quoted Mrs. Friedman from her official statement, where she expressed her firm belief that the ten years spent in the company have been by far the most rewarding of her career and that her decision to step down was one of the hardest she ever had to take.

The decision comes in a time when the book industry is under an immense amount of pressure with lower annual revenues and decreasing payrolls.