Category: Industry Voices

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

I started in the newspaper industry and, to begin with, I didn't know I wanted to do magazines… but when I started to understand the differences, it was the mixture design and editorial that appealed to me. I like the design element of a magazine, how crafted it is, opposed to a newspaper where it's mostly templated.

What have been your career highlights so far?

We were just nominated for a Webby Award for a feature we did for Canon Europe about a marine biologist and the work he's doing in Norway – using his scientific knowledge and access to photograph Norway’s whales, eagles, sea lions…His underwater photography is well worth a look.

Two years ago, I started working in contract publishing. I’d been working as the Editor of Professional Photography magazine at Future, but this opportunity arose and it’s provided me with all of my career highlights: I’ve travelled to the Arctic Circle, New York, Sicily, Milan… and we’ve been nominated for a PPA and won CMA awards for the work we’ve produced along the way.

It was a big career shift, and it comes with a whole new set of challenges, but it’s allowed me to create video with budgets I could only have dreamt of when working on newsstand titles. I’ve learnt skills I didn’t expect to from some fantastic journalists who’ve already moved over to the dark side.

What's the most unusual situation you found yourself in because of your job?

On a 10-plus hour tin boat journey in the Arctic Sea with a group of men… wearing a survival suit, with the only toilet option being hanging off the back of the boat with my bum out in the Arctic. I dehydrated myself for the few hours beforehand so I wouldn’t have to flash the whales.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

I think that contract publishing probably isn't that well understood by the rest of the publishing industry. I feel like the team I have now and the way we work is far more traditional and old-school than what I was doing over the past few years for magazines, where my team was increasingly scaled down.

Brands are becoming so much more open-minded when it comes to content, they're realizing branding doesn’t have to be pushed down throats – there doesn't have to be this hard sell. So we get a decent budget and more freedom to create great content than I think might be expected. Standards are high, and the price for mistakes is more apparent.

Walk me through your typical day.

I take my daughter to school, arrive (with a slightly frantic demeanour, making a beeline for my desk) at work. I’ll spend a couple of hours answering emails, and dealing with or assigning tasks that have materialised overnight. A day never goes by without two or three meetings: at least one of those being with our client. We work hard to keep meetings as succinct as possible.

I shouldn’t, but I eat at my desk… I’ll often have a content proposal or five to write, or on-going projects to report on, and some first or final reading. I have team-members in Bath, London and Copenhagen, so editorial meetings where we make sure everyone is on the same page are a regular punctuation. The days go fast, and struggling to answer this has made me realise how blessedly varied it is.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

My standard go-to outfit is just black jeans and a jazzy jacket or jumper.

How do you handle deadlines?

It's a difficult question – it just depends on the deadline. I think deadlines are great, and I need deadlines. But in the context of working with Canon, there are a lot of them going on all the time. So those editorial meetings are so important just to make sure we're sharing the load and we're working in the right direction – keeping an eye on them. There are often multiple projects going on simultaneously, with colliding deadlines. We’re lucky to have a fantastic production editor keeping us on track with those.

I think that my gut reaction to looming deadlines is to try and get it done as fast as possible – to just get my head down and get on with it.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you or added value to your brand?

I think, being in contract publishing, it's nice to still feel part of the wider publishing industry. It's great reading about what everyone else is doing, and the insights and the courses PPA runs. It's nice to feel a part of a bigger industry, and then of course it’s important that clients see and recognise what it means about us.

If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

The ambitious person in me wants to say I would read a lot more and I would exercise, and do all those things that I make excuses for not doing enough of because of lack of time. I think in reality I would probably be lying in bed browsing my phone for 7 hours longer.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

I took a picture of a wall with some flowers growing up it, that I thought looked pretty. It was at Lacock Abbey.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

I do not feel guilty about my pleasures, although there's one that verges on it: I love instant noodles. Generally, I think I'm quite a healthy person. But the instant noodles that you get from Asian supermarkets with lemon squeezed on – I can (and do) eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I know they're not good for me. There's no nutrition there, but I can't stop eating them.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

Ryan Gosling.

What's the worst piece of advice you've ever been given?

It's not so much the advice but the thing that has often preceded bad advice: "Believe me, I've been doing this a long time.” I always think that if someone's saying that, then it's probably preceding something that you don't really want to hear, or isn't going to be very useful to hear. I don’t mean to belittle experience, but condescension in the face of new ideas is the worst.

What/where is your happy place?

A Singapore hawker centre. My family used to spend a lot of time in Singapore – my mum’s Chinese-Indonesian, and her family live there. The hawker centre is where you get all the local foods – it’s a foodie’s heaven.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

That I drive a 1974 Ford Capri MK1 and I've had 37 classic cars over the past 15 years.

What would be in your Room 101?

Have you noticed how 9 times out of 10, if you ask ‘How are you?’ the answer is, ‘Busy’. It's such a subjective thing. I think it's really overused, and feels like a competition in being busy.

Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Extrovert.

Optimist or pessimist?

Optimist.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

Film, but Fleabag has been phenomenal.

Sweet or savoury?

Savoury.

Morning person or night owl?

Night owl.

Tea or coffee?

Tea.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

Cool. I use the thumbs up all the time – it seems more dynamic than sending simply a ‘yes’.

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

From an early age I wanted to get involved in media, but I was never sure in what capacity. I was forever surrounded by newspapers and magazines from all genres as a kid, so it appeared a natural fit. It’s fascinating to see which publications are now thriving and which have gone. You can never predict it.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

I’m lucky in that I have worked for the same company throughout my career. I’ve had great support around me to ensure I constantly grow into new roles at Think.

I started at Think back in 2006, selling classified – ‘proper classified’ – where I was selling linage adverts – £50 a pop. It was a big learning curve but also a numbers game. I learnt a lot and would recommend it to anyone.

As I gradually moved up into display the deals became bigger and bigger but I was lucky that media was changing rapidly. All of a sudden we had a huge range of ad formats to sell, from digital, new print creatives, events and video. I was fortunate that when I worked at Think I gained invaluable experience selling across both consumer and B2B portfolios. I worked across walking, yachting, photography and lifestyle, to accounting and optics. Getting to know new markets is challenging but satisfying and again, each one is different.

Heading up a small team in the B2B sector was great and I loved the range of sectors I was working in but when Think acquired Wanderlust and I had the opportunity to work on it, it was no-brainer. When I first started in 2006, we used to receive Wanderlust in the office as it was a competitor title. I used to be jealous of whoever was selling on it. The brand has so many opportunities and the future is looking bright for us. What you put into it, you get out and it’s an exciting time to work in the travel sector. Wanderlust’s influence and authenticity really shines through, hence the great success we’ve had over the last 18 months.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

Jeans / chinos and a shirt. Safe – I try my best not to draw attention to myself anymore!

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

I feel like I’m always on deadline but I try not to turn to anything. If you don’t take a step back and look at the bigger picture you’ll find yourself in trouble, so I probably don’t have a ‘go to’. If I had to pick one, it would be coffee or a walk. It always feels a lot worse when you are in the office.

What’s the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

I was in Hamburg at a conference and on the way to dinner I found a phone in a taxi. When I called the number it turned out to be an advertiser I had been trying to contact for ages – we had a few drinks and ended up agreeing a deal.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

It’s far more strategic and tactical than people think. You really have to think outside the box to even get someone’s attention and then you can’t just sell them anything. If it doesn’t work, you are back to square one. It’s all about long term strategy and making it work for you and the advertiser.

Walk me through your typical day.

Lots of meetings – internal (either reporting up or with the team) or external. There’s never a typical day. You can be called into or called out to a meeting at any stage. The only common thing is the commute, whereby I switch off on the train but read as many newsletters as I can on the bus.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

It provides an incredible source of information. The trade side is so vital and in my role I need to be aware of what is happening and importantly what is available within the world of publishing. The IPN conference was fantastic and it’s great to learn from your peers and also see what is available and what is successful.

If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

Can I flip this and say if I didn’t have anything to do in the day I could just sleep? I have an 11 month old at home! But safe to say I would just spend the time at home with my family.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

Daddy Day care!

What’s your guilty pleasure?

It used to be napping. Nothing better than a weekend nap! But now it would be meat. My wife and I have cut it out except on ‘special occasions’, so I’m constantly inventing special occasions.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

David Cameron’s – I would text him each day asking if there was anything he regretted doing in his time as Prime Minister.

What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

‘Work in recruitment – it will be fun’. Not for me! Also people talk about working hard and the results will come, but if you work hard and have the wrong strategy, there’s no point.

What/where is your happy place?

Lords on the opening day of a Test match. Anticipation, champagne corks opening at 10am, and parents filling their kids’ bags with booze to ensure they get their allotted allowance in.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I’ve been told I’m completely different outside of work. I’m really laid back at home, which perhaps jars with the all action work environment…

What would be in your Room 101?

Quite a few things. I hate traffic but in particular on the motorway when the sign says max speed of 40mph, but you’re actually crawling along at 1mph.

Can I say Arsenal fans?

Introvert or extrovert?

Extrovert.

Optimist or pessimist?

Pessimist.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

TV – no time for the cinema any more. Fleabag and Line of Duty.

Sweet or savoury?

Savoury.

Morning person or night owl?

Morning person.

Tea or coffee?

Coffee.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

On text or What’s app – cool – but never on email! If I use one, it’s normally the laughing emoji – usually sent to make sure people know I’m joking and not being serious!

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

I grew up in a household where we were raised on print media. My father in particular, but my mother as well, loved magazines and newspapers.

Every weekend we would get The Sunday Times, and I remember reading The Funday Times, while my Dad read the sports pages and my Mum the colour supplement. Each Sunday we'd also have a guest paper: a tabloid or different broadsheet, and it was a focal point of every Sunday discussing what we'd read.

When I went to university, everyone else would get care boxes filled with food or money. I, however, would get packages arriving full of cuttings from newspapers and magazines that my parents thought I'd find interesting. I think it's probably inevitable that I ended up as a journalist.

Can you chart your journey from where you started out to your current position?

I knew I wanted to write so the minute I got to university I signed up for the student paper. I was Editor the following year and probably spent far more time working on that than I did my degree. My parents were teachers; I didn’t come to the industry armed with contacts, but I made my own by working on that student paper and doing as much work experience as I could. I’m a firm believer that you make your own luck.

My first paid journalist gig was temping at John Brown Citrus publishing, followed by a stint at Redwood publishing on the Swarovski magazine, where I basically spent six months in a windowless cupboard, polishing crystals.

Previously though I’d managed to secure work experience at Cosmopolitan and made friends with a staff member called Erin, who went on to work at More magazine and would pay me to get sex stories from my university friends for the magazine, for £10 each.

She was the fairy godmother who tipped me off about a Digital Writer job at Condé Nast, a few years later, which was my first ‘proper’ job.

I learned so much being part of a very young, digital team, at a time when digital wasn’t really a thing yet and most magazines didn’t even have websites. I then got approached by Marie Claire when I was 26, to launch their digital arm. A few years later I moved to AOL for an Editor-in-Chief role. Before I knew it, AOL were buying The Huffington Post, so I got in touch with Arianna Huffington and proposed launching in the UK. Finally, I was headhunted by WGSN and, four and a half years later, here I am!

What is the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

It’s more about unusual questions than situations. Everyone wants to know how we predict trends. And everyone wants to know the next ‘it’ colour. WGSN, historically, was created for the fashion industry, but we now service almost too many industries to name. We take these really big macro ideas and then we forecast how that will make people behave, what it will make them feel, how it will make them think, and, therefore, what products and experiences they will want to buy. I use the word experiences deliberately. Products can be experiences today, and visa versa.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

I can be pretty lazy when it comes to dressing, for someone who runs a trend forecaster, with the most fashion forward people at their fingertips. More often than not, I’ll wear jeans and trainers, or a jumpsuit or a dress, which doesn't require me to think about two separate parts to the outfit!

Any tips for aspiring fashionistas?

Our colour prediction for next year is neo mint, and surprisingly, pedal pushers are coming back!

How do you handle deadlines?

I think the problem is I'm a journalist by background and journalists leave everything to the last minute, because they have a filing date and you file to that minute, especially in a digital world. I totally do leave things until the last minute, but I always hit a deadline. I get very frustrated with people who don’t.

Can you walk me through your typical day?

I travel a lot for work. We've got 14 offices around the world and we've got clients in 94 countries so, more often than not, I’m on a plane somewhere. I can pack for a two-week trip with hand luggage only. Although, if the weather forecast is incorrect on my iPhone at the time of packing I'm stuffed.

Probably an average day will see me spending time with clients, going and finding out what's worrying them, what's exciting them. Probably a few strategy documents to put together. I think the difference from moving from the creative role into running the company has been there's a lot more reporting to do, so making sure all my board packs are up to date and correct, and looking at the numbers side of the business as well as the content and insight, but I'm quite hands on with the team as well. We're launching WGSN Beauty this week, and two days ago I spent the morning signing off the creative for the pop-up banners which will tell people it's coming.

Down to that kind of level I like knowing what's going on. We had an event recently and I was unhappy with the menu. I get into that level of detail.

What do you think people would be surprised to know about your job?

I pride myself on not asking anyone to do something I'm not prepared to do myself. I learnt that from Abigail Chisman, who was the Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast Digital when I was just starting out.

When we were launching Easy Living online, we were all there copying and pasting horoscopes until about three in the morning and she was there right alongside us. For me, that’s always the mark of a really good leader. I also really believe in good work/life balance and flexible working. I feel very strongly that you should be empowered to be brilliant at your job however and wherever you are.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

I think what's been really interesting is how it’s shining a light on the amazing stuff that's happening in the B2B space at the moment.

If you didn't have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

Exercise. I love yoga, running and walking.

What's the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview) and why?

It was the new salted caramel Nakd bar. I took a photograph and sent it to my boyfriend saying, “This is the best thing ever!” Tragic, I know.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

I buy candles all the time and discovered H&M Home recently, where they’re really cheap so there’s nothing stopping me buying even more of them. So, my guilty pleasure is probably spending too much money on scented candles either at Anthropologie or H&M.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

Oh, probably Theresa May's right now to ask what the hell is going on.

What's the worst piece of advice you've ever been given?

It was from a pension adviser when I was just starting out. I'd been offered a pension at Condé Nast and he came to talk to me and said it was very good. He actually said, “You probably should stay and work there for the rest of your life”. I was 22 and even though I loved the company, I couldn’t believe someone was suggesting I carried on working there forever just because they had a good pension scheme.

What/where is your happy place?

Formentera – a little island just off the coast of Ibiza. It's my favourite place in the world.

What would be in your Room 101?

Live chat where there isn’t another human being on the other end.

Introvert or extrovert?

Extrovert.

Optimist or pessimist?

Optimist.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching anything at the moment?

Television. Escape to the Château: DIY.

Sweet or savoury?

Sweet.

Morning person or a night owl?

Midday.

Tea or coffee?

Peppermint tea.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

Cool! The kissing emoji.

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

I always wanted to write; I knew that quite early on. I was quite unusual as a child in that I bought newspapers from about the age of 11 onwards. I read them on the bus on the way to school – I’ve always been interested in news. When I was a teenager, I got into the music press and style magazines like The Face, they showed me another world that seemed far more interesting and glamorous than the one that I lived in, in suburban London.

I've always read a lot of books and aspired to be a novelist. These things all came together at a certain point, because I got a job in Paris teaching English after university and planned to write my first novel. But journalism got in the way: the guy I was sharing a flat with (I couldn't afford to buy magazines) had a copy of Blitz, and they were advertising for an Editorial Assistant; I thought, this could be the one for me. I went back and got the job. I've been very fortunate to have a career working with words.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

I worked at Blitz for a couple of years. It was a good place to learn, because it was so small, so you saw how everything worked. Whether that was in art department, or the very small editorial team that we had, understanding the commercial and production departments: I got to experience the entire operation closely.

I'd always been interested in American nonfiction writing. I was inspired by the new journalism – writers like Joan Didion and Truman Capote – so, when I read that Esquire was launching in the U.K., and Lee Eisenberg, who was the editor of Esquire in the U.S., was going to come over and launch it, I wrote him a letter explaining how much I’d like to work there.

I went for an interview on a Friday, at the old National Magazines building on Broadwick Street. He told me to go away over the weekend and come up with 10 news pitches and 10 feature pitches.

I pretty much didn’t sleep the whole weekend, but I produced this document and he gave me my first proper editorial job. I went to Arena next, where I was Deputy Editor for about four years. I was appointed Editor when Emap took over. I did that for about a year, and then got an offer, out the blue, from Dennis Publishing in New York. I’d always wanted to work in Manhattan, so it was hard to turn down.

Eventually, I was hired as Executive of Details, a magazine that was hugely influential over the years. This was Bush years, so I was commissioning all the kind of Iraq, Afghanistan, war on drugs, sort of stuff, which was fun because I was able to work with great writers. I got to really appreciate the high-level at which US magazines operate at in terms of the attention to detail, the multiple edits, the fact-checking, the real belief in the mission of journalism and publishing excellence.

We were in New York for nearly 10 years and had a great time but wanted eventually to return to Europe. I joined WIRED as Deputy Editor around eight months after it launched in April 2009. I was appointed Editor at the end 2016.

What’s the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

Having Nicole Kidman demonstrate a roundhouse kick in the middle of the tea room at the Lanesborough Hotel got people's attention. And taking the wrong turn at an event and ending up realising that I was standing in a room with the Duke of Cambridge and his security detail. Interviewing both Tony Blair and Theresa May was intriguing. At the other end of the scale, being at Glasgow Crown court for the sentencing of the men convicted of the UK’s biggest cocaine heist.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

That we have so many processes in place in order to deliver what we promise our readers at every turn. There are three things that we have to deliver our readers: quality, integrity and authority. It’s about ensuring that those qualities inform absolutely everything we do, whether that’s a live event, or whether we're doing a podcast, or whether we're doing a magazine piece, or a piece online, or whatever it is.

We have a real fear of getting facts wrong – a slip-up is a breach of trust between WIRED and its readers. It's so important for the brand that we have that as one of the core values, because that's what people look to WIRED for.

Walk me through your typical day.

I travel quite a bit but, on a typical day, I wake up fairly early, because I need that quiet time just to catch up on writing or email. I usually get to the office about 9.00am. Then we have daily conference. We are a fully integrated team now, so there's no one just works on print, no one just works on digital: everyone works on both.

At conference we talk about what we need to be doing that day, what we need to be responding to. Sometimes those meetings a very brief, we're literally just checking in. Other times, they can go on for quite a long time. Then after that, really, it's a mixture of working with copy, organizing our events, working closely with our commercial team, thinking about the strategic side of the business and how we can best continue to grow, which we've done significantly over the last three years. But, also, just trying to ensure that everything we do is the best that it can be.

In the evenings I might have a work event, see friends or eat dinner at home with the family.

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

I drink a lot of tea. I’m a planner, so I tend to work on our events or strategic thinking a long way ahead. When it comes to writing, and I know what the real deadline is, I'm not a prevaricator but I will just push it right until the last minute because I want as much time as I possibly can to make it as good as I can.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I remember reading a profile of Gay Talese and he used to always show up an hour or two before he was interviewing someone because he always felt that he might get something that he wasn't expecting. So, he'd hang out in the waiting room, or outside, and he'd see the subject in a different way; he'd see them getting out of a car or interacting on the street.

I think that would be a good bit of advice for a young journalist is always show up early and hang around as long as you can, until they kick you out onto the street because that's the way you'll get the good stuff. The unexpected is always going to be more revealing than the scripted.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

It depends. If I'm doing external things I am a bit suit-and-tie, but if it's internal things, I'm smart. I work at Condé Nast, so there's a pretty high bar here in terms of style, although WIRED people tend to be a little bit more dressed down.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

I think that we are able to all learn from each other. What's valuable is being able to share best practice. We're all facing very similar challenges and we're all at different stages of our maturity of our brands.

We were quite early on events and obviously everyone's doing them now. Even though we've doing them for at least eight years it's interesting to talk to people who maybe have just been doing them for a couple of years, because they've got a very different experience of the marketplace.

It's also interesting to just talk to people about what their commercial challenges are and to hear about their experiences engaging readers with new platforms.

No one in this industry has total clarity on what things are going to be like in two or three years. Eight years ago, everyone thought that tablets were going to be the most exciting thing to arrive in publishing since the printing press; that didn't happen. We know now that mobile is the most exciting thing in publishing since the printing press, and we're all trying to figure out what that means for our businesses.

I think being part of something like the PPA means that we can have those conversations and we can learn best practice. There’s an openness to the conversations that's really powerful.

If you didn't have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

I would exercise more, and I would read more. I live in London and would like to spend time in nature, but I’d probably just end up following media in whatever part of the world was awake.

What's the last photo you took on your phone and why did you take it?

It was at our Health conference last Tuesday. It’s a photo of Erin Smith, who won our start-up competition. At the age of 19, she’s launched a business to help identify people with early stages of Parkinson’s disease.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Arrested Development.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

At the moment, I think Barack and Michelle Obama. To have voices of sanity in an otherwise terrifyingly worrying world. David Attenborough would be nice too.

What's the worst piece of advice you've ever been given?

Stop worrying.

What/where is your happy place?

I swim most mornings. I'm always happy in water.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

That depends who they are.

What would be in your Room 101?

The ERG and blue cheese.

Introvert or an extrovert?

Both.

Optimist or pessimist?

Optimist with pessimistic tendencies.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

Both. I go the movies a lot and I try and stay up with box sets. And live television still has those moments of shared experience that are hard to beat.

Sweet or savoury?

Savoury.

Morning person or night owl?

By nature, I'm a night owl. By design I'm a morning person. I'm really not a good early riser, but I force myself to be because it's the only way I will get any writing done. I’ve had six books published and co-written a movie, and the majority of the work was done before I went to my day job.

Tea or coffee?

I drink too much of both.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

The one I use all the time is the thumbs-up emoji. It conveys so much, and I like its jauntiness.

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

I’ve always loved the way magazines are so focused on their specific reader. I grew up reading women’s magazines that approached stories about politics or beauty with equal passion and respect. That’s something I’ve tried to learn from today.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

Like most careers, mine is a mixture of luck, resilience and late nights. I was doing work experience at Grazia as part of my magazine journalism postgrad degree when the most junior job on the team came up – so it really was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I worked my way up there, launching Grazia’s first website, before going on to be Assistant Editor. I was then asked to be the editorial presence on a project group charged with scoping out a new launch in the young women’s market. That ‘Project Rosetta’ ended up becoming The Debrief – Bauer’s first digital-only platform, which I launched and edited. I then moved to The Telegraph, where I oversaw fashion and edited Luxury magazine. And now I’ve come full circle back to Grazia, as Editor.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

Jeans, a shirt and loafers. A printed dress when I’m feeling the need to look a little more ‘done’.

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

Whatever kind of chocolate I can find lying around the office. I’ve even been known to hunt out a leftover advent calendar in February.

What’s the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

Attending a state dinner in the grounds of the White House, when I was there shadowing David Cameron on his first trip to meet Barack Obama. It was in a marquee at the bottom of the garden and we were driven down in golf carts, a bit like the poshest wedding you could imagine. Albeit one where the guests are Carey Mulligan, Apple’s Jony Ive and Damian Lewis – who was playing Homeland’s is-he-isn’t-he-a-terrorist Agent Brody at the time. Seeing him strolling through the White House corridors was totally surreal.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

That people in the fashion industry aren’t actually that frosty. I’m lucky enough to have lots of people I’ve met through work who I consider friends outside of the office.

Walk me through your typical day.

Each day can be so different, depending on who I’m meeting and whether I’m editing, commissioning, writing or presenting – and indeed if I’m in the UK at all. But pretty much every day is rooted around daily news conference; an hour when the brilliant brains at Grazia get in a room and talk about what our reader is worrying about, pondering and obsessing over – and how we can cover it. Often, we end up veering from TV to the tightrope that is British politics right now in the same breath. It’s silly and smart – and my favourite part of the day.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

Being connected in an industry that’s ever changing is very valuable. We can all learn from each other – especially at the moment, where there’s a constant need to innovate.

If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

As a mum of two kids under four, I’d still choose to sleep.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

A bit of a building in Warsaw, snatched through the window of the back of a cab. I find myself travelling a lot lately, but never having enough time to explore the city properly, so I end up ‘sightseeing’ on the go. It’s a shame.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Eating beans on toast while watching cookery programmes on TV.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

Michelle Obama’s. Predictable, but true.

What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

“A fringe suits everyone.”

What advice would you give to aspiring writers hoping to break into the magazine industry?

Find someone whose writing you really admire, study what it is about it that you think resonates with you – and then get in touch with that person to ask for their advice. You’d be amazed how many people will help if you just ask.

What one sentence would you say to your 16-year-old self?

I’d like to say, ‘Don’t worry, life will get less angsty.’ But she wouldn’t listen.

What/where is your happy place?

Answering the random but somehow so pertinent questions of my toddler, while I’m lying in bed with her trying to persuade her to go to sleep.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I’m an Arsenal season ticket holder.

What would be in your Room 101?

People who bail at short notice.

Introvert or extrovert?

49% v 51%, according to a personality test I did once.

Optimist or pessimist?

Optimist.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

TV at the moment… Russian Doll, which is making me want to have a blow-out birthday party.

Sweet or savoury?

Sweet.

Morning person or night owl?

Morning.

Tea or coffee?

Coffee.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

Thumbs up and Questioning emoji

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

I think that's a complicated one, because I wouldn't really say I work in the magazine industry. I mean, what is the magazine industry anymore? I work at a publisher who publishes magazines, but I think actually what I do is more technology, and content marketing, and that's a very different side to the business.

I never set out intending to work in the magazine industry. I set out intending to be a teacher… and then Michael Gove happened, so I decided to shelve that one for a while.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

I went to an educational publisher over the summer after university as my degree was Education with English, which turned into a job doing digital versions of their textbooks. I then went into publishing tech. I did digital versions of magazines for publishers, and at that point, I started to get quite interested in a lot of the challenges that the industry was facing and a lot of the innovations that were coming out of it. Then I got into media analysis at theMediaBriefing.

When Dennis offered me the opportunity to actually come and work inside a publisher, on these alternative revenue streams I've been talking about for so long, it was a great opportunity to actually see inside a publisher, rather than analysing from the outside..I still don't really feel like I work in magazines, but that's just because I focus on all the digital sites.

I had to pick up a lot of skills along the way around writing persuasively. A lot of what I was writing about at Uni involved taking apart an academic subject that people might not necessarily understand and turning that into practical advice that people can understand. I've come to use that skill across all the different jobs and it's got to this stage where I basically do that every day.

For me, the most exciting thing is it's working on a new revenue stream in Dennis. It's not something that many other publishers are doing, and it's quite interesting to get the chance to drive part of that strategy.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

Almost always a dress and blazer. If the dress has pockets, even better.

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

Snacks. I’ve always got a bag of chocolate buttons or something nearby.

What’s the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

At our Comic-Con themed Christmas party I went as Rey from Star Wars.

I was wandering around Soho in the middle of winter draped in scarves, with my husband's knee strap supports as arm warmers.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

I don't always fully understand what I am talking about. I don't actually know that much about IT, but a lot of what my job involves is taking some very, very technical white papers and turning them into content that is understandable and digestible. People use the term “snackable”, I hate that, but it's these really in-depth whitepapers on, for example, cloud storage.

It's about researching what are the actual important things around that. I can write about five trends in cloud storage but if you actually ask me to explain what I am writing, I am not a pro at that.

Walk me through your typical day.

I'd be amazed if anyone has one these days.

I get in, I make a cup of tea (English Breakfast obviously) and the rest of the day completely varies depending on what stage we are at in a campaign, or throughout the month. Often my job will revolve around, if a campaign comes in, I've got to read the whitepapers, summarize them and look up all the existing content we've got around them. The one pressure point in the day is probably the fact that the IT team produce news every morning for the lunchtime newsletter.

I'll have to check if anything is suitable for our clients that goes in there. In the morning I also tend to focus on our email strategy and I'll compose emails a couple of times a week for those data pots.

The rest of the time, I write articles myself, and also look at analytics, actually saying “what's doing well, what can we push a bit more, why has this done well?”

I'd say probably about a third of it now is looking at the data we've already got and asking how we can do things better. It feels like it's that kind of trend within the industry.

So, it's not a typical job and there's no typical day but I doubt if anybody has that.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

The PPA Festival is really good. It's always great to get an idea about what other companies are doing with the innovation. There's always ideas you can pick up from that, new people to meet and see at the festival, this will be my first year attending as part of Dennis.

If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

I'd relax. I'm really, really bad at relaxing. Also, over Christmas, my husband introduced me to a game called Stardew Valley on the computer. It’s about having your own farm and managing it (but better than Farmville!) It’s really addictive so I’d probably play that.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

We were recording the meeting for this podcast [the Media Voices Podcast with Chris Sutcliffe and Peter Houston] and I obviously don't have a studio, the three of us record remotely. We were testing a new recording solution and I had to sit on the bed with a blanket over my head, the laptop and the microphone to get a decent sound. I then took a photo afterwards to show the guys what I've been sitting under.

It looks very cosy, but my goodness, you would not believe how sweaty it got under that blanket.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

I try not to feel guilty about things I enjoy, but in terms of things I love doing that are really embarrassing, I love it when you've got a really long car journey so I can load up my musical theatre playlist. Let’s just say, I get to the end of the road with very little voice.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

Mark Hamill’s, only because, I don't know where he's been for the last however many years, but he's re-emerged in recent years on social media and he's just hysterical.

What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Your readers will love this. I was advised three or four years ago not to go into the magazine industry, because it was dying. This was from somebody inside a publisher. They just said, the industry's not going to be around for long enough for you to build a career, so don't do it.

What/where is your happy place?

It's just a quiet weekend with the sun shining, having a beer in the garden. Five years ago, I would never have been caught dead saying something like that but since getting a garden, you kind of have to look after it and it’s growing (literally) to be my happy place.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I'm synaesthetic, where you see numbers and letters in colour. I didn't realise until I read a piece about Katie Melua who’s also synaesthetic and then it was one of those Wikipedia rabbit holes which explained it. I thought it was something everybody experiences, but it turns out no, it's not a thing most people have. I did all these online tests and it turns out I'm actually synaesthetic. It’s like different letters and numbers and days of the week have different colour auras, that’s the only way to describe it.

What would be in your Room 101?

People who walk along with their headphones in watching shows on their phones, especially when wandering around Waterloo. They have zero awareness.

Introvert or extrovert?

I am both. Honestly, it depends on the situation, like conferences, for example, are tough, because if you've been at a conference you need to recharge, then you've got post-conference drinks and sometimes I just need to charge up for a little bit.

Optimist or pessimist?

That also varies. Can I be cynical optimist?

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

I don't think there's much of a difference anymore, it's all merging. I actually thought the BBC's adaptation of Les Misérables was brilliant.

Sweet or savoury?

I think I'm more a savoury person, but I do have a weakness for chocolate, and I love cheese.

Morning person or night owl?

At the moment, neither. I used to be a real night owl, but I just get to the stage now when it gets to 10:30pm and I know if I’m not in bed, the next day I'm going to really regret it.

Tea or coffee?

Tea. It’s got to be a medium strong proper English Breakfast tea, with no sugar.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

Depends on how you're using them. We use Slack at Dennis so it feels like you can't not use emojis. Everybody reacts in emojis and it's quite a nice way of humanising people. Then again, if they’re overused, I feel a bit like saying “calm down”. The one I use most often is the grimace.

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

I'd worked on a magazine at university, and I'd worked on a magazine at school, so I had some exposure, and I just love magazines. When the opportunity came up to go onto a graduate training program at IPC it was fantastic. The thing that was unusual at that time is that it was an all-round opportunity to learn about magazine publishing. I did everything from visiting newsagents through to working on the Editorial floor, through to working on the Marketing and Advertising sales. I got that all-round sort of exposure to magazine publishing.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

My background is as a magazine publisher, I started at what was IPC, now TI Media, as a graduate trainee. Until coming to the NLA, my entire career was as a magazine publisher.

I worked in contract publishing, or custom publishing for a while. I worked in the Financial Times on their business magazines. I worked at Puzzler Media, and from Puzzler, which was then acquired by DC Thomson, I ran a business they owned down in Cheltenham called This England Publishing. Then I went up to Dundee and was publishing all the magazines for DC Thomson that they had. Everything from The People's Friend through to the Beano.

I live down in London and was looking for a reason to move back to London and be nearer to home, and then the opportunity came up at NLA. NLA fits primarily in-between publishers, we collectively represent publishers with media monitoring organizations, and other people that want to own a license to be able to copy content for media monitoring purposes. The NLA only used to represent newspapers, it now represents magazines as well.

Basically we return money back to publishers, and we're now growing the money that we return to magazine publishers.

*Do you have a go-to work outfit? *

I've got a suit, and I wear it, but it depends on what you're doing. Obviously, we deal a lot with the newspapers, and suits still tend to be the norm in a newspaper environment. Magazines, I think, are much more relaxed in their dress code.

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

Having worked in publishing where you've got deadlines pretty-much all day, every day, I think it's just the norm, so I wouldn't say that I necessarily turn to anything. One of the excitements of working in any kind of news media is that you're dealing, almost constantly, with deadlines of some sort and that’s what I enjoy.

What's the most unusual situation you've found yourself in because of your job?

When I was working on NME, on the marketing side, they sponsored a debate at the Oxford University Union, which was, “Has rock and roll lost its balls?”.

I ended up driving a guy called Stephen Wells, who was an anarchist poet, but he was also a writer on the NME, up to Oxford for him to speak at this debate. He was a proper anarchist, a proper angry man, and hated capitalism and given that I was a Management trainee, I must have been the absolute antithesis of everything he believed in, but we had a really good chat on the way up there.

He was a brilliant journalist, and unfortunately, he passed away, he was far too young. It was fascinating, just that kind of complete view and through university I don't think I'd met anyone kind of quite so angry, but his anger was for the right reasons, I think.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

I think within the publishing world that there are still a lot of people unaware that the NLA exists, and the job that we do. I think it’s because we're very much behind the scenes and we just quietly get on with doing our job. We're obviously a sponsor of the PPA, and part of the reason we do that is so that the right people understand that we exist, and that we are force of good for publishers.

Walk me through your typical day.

That’s the fun of the job, it can be everything from working with either a new publisher, or a new group of publishers, in terms of new services and ways that we can help them protect their content, how they can monetize their content. Sometimes it will be newspaper and magazine-focussed, some days it will very much be dealing with trade associations.

I also look after our sales operation down in Tunbridge Wells, and I do two days a week there.

There really isn't a typical day because while we don’t have a deadline like a publication date we do have constant deadlines and more time to do some developmental work. Our eye is always on how can we maximise the revenues that we're gaining for the publishers.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

Having the PPA, as that sort of professional trade association that is looking to make sure that best practice is consistent across the magazine publishing industry, obviously we want to support that, and the more thriving the publishing industry is, the better it is for everyone.

If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

I'd learn to make wine.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

It's really embarrassing, it's a picture of a carpet shop. We're looking to get a new stairs carpet, and there was a carpet shop that had a set of stairs in there; it's a picture of that.

What's your guilty pleasure?

It's got to be the Mail Online.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

This is a really tricky one, but I think I would really like to have Donald Trump's telephone number just because, wouldn't it be fascinating? Wouldn't you just love to know what really and truly is going on?

I have no political allegiance there, but just that if I had his number, to phone him up and have a chat.

What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Fairly early on, somebody said to me that if you work in publishing you're going to change jobs quite a bit, and you should sometimes look at that as an opportunity to re-invent yourself.

Actually, that is the worst thing. I think the great thing with publishing, and the people in publishing, is that you'll meet the widest range of people and personalities and everyone is desperately passionate about what they want to do. I think if you're going to do something like that you can only go in and be successful at it if you are being yourself. Don't try and make yourself into something you're not.

What/where is your happy place?

It's in my garden talking to my chickens; I’ve got five with strong female names. At the moment we've got Kylie, Madonna, Whitney, Audrey and Marilyn.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I once appeared in a photo story in Jackie magazine. It’s funny how things go around, with me 35 years later,being at DC Thomson, which had been the publisher of Jackie magazine. I’ve still got the issue!

What would be in your Room 101?

I think probably foxes, because then they wouldn't eat my chickens.

Introvert or extrovert?

Extrovert.

Optimist or pessimist?

Optimist.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

TV. I’m watching Westworld at the moment.

Sweet or savoury?

Sweet.

Morning person or night owl?

Morning.

Tea or coffee?

Coffee.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

I don't use emojis.

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

I’d grown up loving magazines, with Melody Maker, Smash Hits and Empire being some of my favourites. Despite loving magazines I never thought I’d be working in the industry, it was for glamorous people, not someone like me!

I’d spent a few years working for a charity and decided I wanted to try something new, and when the recruiter I had registered with sent of the details of a job at PPA I realised that was my way into the magazine industry and jumped at the chance. I got the job and spent probably the next two years being very starstruck any time any editor of any magazine emailed me!

It’s great being on the other side now and working for a media owner, and despite not working directly on a magazine I love the opportunity to bring the brands to life for our readers.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

I had a bit of a varied career before media. I spent two years working for a hotel company in Russell Square, and then a few years working for the British Heart Foundation. Events formed part of my job in both of those roles, and it was always my favourite bit and something I was good at.

My first role at PPA was as Circulation Marketing & Export Executive which meant that I looked after several different committees, including one for subscriptions and direct marketers, which also had an event attached to it that was my responsibility to run. This was my first experience of managing such a large project, as it was a full day conference followed by an awards ceremony. I loved it! So when a role came up on the newly formed PPA Events Team I applied and transferred internally.

I then worked my way from Events Manager to Senior Events Manager, and after nearly seven years at PPA I left to work for Dennis Publishing to be their Marketing Communications Manager. This role still included running some events, with a focus on media agency roadshows, and staff entertainment or product launches, but also some of our reader events, a very new experience for me.

In 2017 the company was restructured to create an in-house events team and I was promoted to Head of Events, overseeing the entire Dennis portfolio which is now around 65 events a year and growing!

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

Not one outfit as such but I’m often found in a dress and trainers. I’m out and about at site visits and meetings quite a lot, and often running slightly late so need to be comfortable and able to walk quickly, but still look smart!

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

Hot chocolate! We have really good coffee machines in the office that also make very good hot chocolate, so if I need an afternoon pick me up that’s what I turn to.

What’s the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

Hugging a tree for a photo in Central Park – Dennis took part in The Drum’s Do It Day campaign two years in a row, each time with the mission to plant a forest in a day. We asked people to send in photos of them hugging trees and in exchange we would plant a tree in the forest, and obviously I had to put my money where my mouth was and get involved myself!

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

It’s not as glamorous as you might think! People that don’t work in events thinks it’s all invites to amazing parties, and free food and drinks in places, and there is definitely some of that. But there’s all the bits that people don’t see, such as ridiculously early starts and very long days setting up and running the events, and all the mountains of admin tasks that go with making sure everything runs to plan. I also spend a lot of time with my head in spreadsheets, which I’m sure isn’t many people’s idea of fun!

Walk me through your typical day.

My days are so varied due to vast array of brands I work across at Dennis and the things I need to get done! I usually get to work early so I can go through my emails and Slack messages before the rest of the team get in. I tend to have a lot of meetings so this time at my desk is vital, allowing me to check that all projects are on track, and that ticket sales are going to plan. I have regular 1-2-1’s and team meetings to go through any issues that they may be facing, and to ensure I’m up to date with everything that’s going on with each event.

We’ve got some exciting launches in the pipeline for 2019 and beyond, so a lot of my days are spent working on proposals and numbers for those at the moment, along with meeting with suppliers and venues to find the best possible deals. This can involve a trip to a Land Rover off-road course, or heading to the Yorkshire Dales to check the plans for our first off road cycling and camping event, Ride T’Pub, or going down to glorious Goodwood to work with the team there on our different track days.

On a good day myself and the team will get to go to a menu tasting for an event, which means eating your bodyweight in food and usually some free wine. This only happens a couple of times a year though unfortunately! If it’s a standard day then at lunch time I usually try and get outside for a walk and some fresh air to set me up for the afternoon.

If I don’t have meetings I’ll spend my time researching ideas for new events, putting together pitch documents, and updating the budget sheets with the latest sales figures. I also work closely with our Director of PR & Marketing Communications on our awards strategy for the year, making sure we’re entering all the relevant awards and keeping up to date on the great work that’s happening across the business to make sure it gets the credit it deserves.

After work I’ll often meet friends for dinner or head straight home and cook up a storm. I used to go to a lot of industry events but with my job being so busy my free time is very precious to me now. I live in Stoke Newington so get the bus to and from work which allows me time to decompress from the day, and love to watch London pass by, there’s always something interesting to see!

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

Dennis are massive supporters of PPA and the work they do. I find the PPA team such a valuable resource, with everyone always willing to help no matter how random my query! This can be anything from introducing me to new suppliers, to providing me with statistics on different parts of the industry to help with presentations to potential clients and agencies.

The various awards are great too, winning one really raises a brand’s profile and boosts the morale of teams. I would love for one of my team’s events to win Event of the Year at the PPA Awards – having run them I know how robust the process is and that we’d have won totally on merit, and it would be an amazing experience to be up there on that stage!

If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

Baking – I would love to get better at this but tell myself I don’t have the time, in reality it’s probably more a lack of patience!

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

A group photo of me and some friends out for a run at the weekend from London Bridge to Greenwich along the river – we’re all perched on a cannon and it looks a little like an album cover!

What’s your guilty pleasure?

EastEnders – I love catching up with the week’s episodes on a Saturday morning

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

Olivia Coleman, she’s my favourite actress and I bet she would have some amazing stories to tell about all the various films and TV shows she’s worked on. Plus she just seems like a really lovely person and fun to hang out with!

What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

To have a dirty martini at the end of the night on my 30th birthday. Needless to say the night did not have a pretty end….

What/where is your happy place?

New York City, I love it there! I constantly feel like I’m on a film set, and love remembering what films/TV shows were shot in each location.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I’ve run four marathons, each one in a different country.

What would be in your Room 101?

People that walk really slowly and stop for no reason in the middle of the pavement.

Introvert or extrovert?

Introvert.

Optimist or pessimist?

Pessimist – but trying to change that!

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

Film, it’s my biggest passion. I kept a list of all the films I watched for the first time in 2018, it’s 72 films long – I have a feeling this is going to increase in 2019, I’m already up to 11 and it’s only the beginning of February!

Sweet or savoury?

Savoury.

Morning person or night owl?

Used to be a night owl without doubt, but this has slowly shifted to morning person as I tend to do most of my exercising before work.

Tea or coffee?

Coffee in the morning, herbal teas in the afternoon/evening.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

Essential! My most used is definitely the rolling eyes emoji – not sure what that says about me (or my friends)!

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

My dad worked for the Daily Mail, he was on the presses, and he worked in print, so I think that I had this childhood awareness of my dad being in print. I got a job at National Magazines, which is Hearst now, in the post room but with the intention of learning print.

I made a nuisance of myself and got an in with the Production Director and I said, "Look, I want to learn everything about print," and I loved it from then on. So, I got into publishing because I had a real interest in print.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

I started in the post room at National Magazines, just to make a nuisance of myself, to get a foot in the door.

I pestered the Production Director and I sat with the IT director at lunchtimes and I'd learned everything I could. Then, very quickly, (within nine months) I was in Advertisement Production, copy chasing. They called it "traffic" at the time, "traffic control".

While in this role, I was copy chasing the L'Oreal and the big Estee Lauder adverts for publications like Cosmopolitan and Company and Zest, all these women's news stand monthlies.

I was at the National Magazines for five years, I worked my way up the ranks to Ad Production Controller, and then I got into advertorials as a Production Controller.

I was there for five years, but then I got head-hunted and brought over to a new start-up, Sally O'Sullivan's new start-up, Cabal. I went over there as Production Manager, which was a huge, massively exciting role for me.

I stayed there for probably three or four years before I went to work at Eaglemoss, which is a partworks publisher. I went there as Project Manager, so same sort of thing, production control.

I think my first assignment; my first licensed deal was Barbie. I'd gone from printing news stand magazines and was catapulted into this new world of print and all of these different objects that I'd print. Like a Barbie dress.

I would have to arrange all the hand finishing. They would get a dress every fortnight and you would stick the dress onto the magazine, there were all manner of different print projects and print requirements.

I had loads of different titles at that place. I was working on Marvel and New Line for Lord of the Rings and things like that. Some fantastic products and brands and I ended up working on about ten different titles. I was there six years as a Project Manager, Production Controller.

Then 12 years ago, I joined Think, when it was a much smaller business. It probably about 25% of the turnover that it is now. It was based in a few units in Ladbroke Grove. It was a fairly young company and had been trading maybe 10 years.

I'd always worked for big companies and I wanted to start with a young company and be part of something that was just taking off and be part of that growth. And I got exactly what I wanted 12 years later. I think the company was £4 million turnover when I joined, it's now over £16 million.

You felt like you were really part of something. To be honest, it's never stopped growing. Four years ago, we moved over to our new Edgware Road offices. That was like a pivotal moment for Think, because that was like peeling off the old skin and re-emerging as a bigger beast.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

Probably the volume of print that we still manage. There's a conception that print is dead, and everyone is moving to digital. Think bucks that trend. We print a huge amount of work; we print probably 12 million regular publications a year and we post about half of those.

We're posting over six million packs a year. We've got over 40 clients. We're processing 17,000 pages. The volume is like volumes you would have heard of maybe 20 years ago in the publishing house. We're very, very print heavy. And it proves a fantastic format for our membership base.

What’s the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

Probably, my crush on Kate Humble, which is well-known within the company. We did some work for Zoological Society of London (ZSL) (of which Humble is an ambassador) and I'm quite well known in the offices for having quite a crush on Kate Humble, so when she'd come in I'd wither.

We arranged fluffy toys for ZSL, we arranged those and put those in boxes to go in stores at ZSL. I've had some quite quirky experiences with ZSL – what with Kate Humble and stuffing cuddly toys in presentation boxes.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

Probably smart casual. I'm very much smart jeans and a shirt, or trousers and a polo top. That's me. I don't like to go anywhere outside of that. It's not a place for fashion.

I think we've become more relaxed, decade by decade. I think it would be nice to go back a few decades and try to smarten up a bit. I think we're maybe going a bit too far, the wrong way but I try and dress smart. Slightly professional, I like to say.

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

We're constantly on deadline, because we have so many things going out. We probably have two or three things signing off per week. I've replaced coffee with green tea and that helps calm me. I don't think caffeine and deadlines mix well.

I might let off a few expletives and then relax. That'll be my outburst. Then it will be okay, because I know I've got to do it again in a day's time.

I rely on a fantastic relationship with all my supply chain. It's invaluable to us that they know how we work, we know how they work, and we complement each other in the best way possible.

Walk me through your typical day.

I suppose, thinking about production, I do have a typical day.

On a Monday I'll have a production update with my team. I've got a Production Manager and a Production Controller. Then we've got Advertising Production which is managed by an external supplier.

Then I have a production update at 10 o'clock every Monday morning and I find out what's going through the department that week and I will stay quite close to my team, but they are very in control of what they're doing. We all sit in close proximity so we're quite vocal, we're always talking about supporting and seconding each other, "have you ordered this paper", "is that going on time".

I will normally take control of pricing, there'll always be something to price up, an iteration of a job a new business quote. A new costing that's required by an existing client. I'll take control of that. I've normally got some stuff like that going on and reporting back to the managers and directors. That'll be a normal week for me, will be a lot of reporting and pricing and costing and managing the team, so there'll always be different jobs at different stages throughout any week. I'll just make sure that all that stuff is running smoothly.

I will speak to the suppliers very regularly; probably weekly I'll have interaction.

In terms of critical path, I would say, there's probably two or three magazines going to print a week, but in terms of deadlines and critical path workload, there's probably I would say maybe 15 or 20 things. 15 or 20 things and that can be from ordering paper, getting data in, verifying data. Issuing a print order, checking on deliveries. There's a lot of process stuff.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

Funnily enough, I've been working with Royal Mail on postage initiatives recently.

Royal Mail are just about to release a letter that's got some quotes from me in it about how helpful they were now the tariffs have changed. They've released new products onto the market.

There are a few hoops to jump through to be able to validate our titles for it, but they've been very, very helpful and helped us achieve these different processes that can help us save money and that's been really useful.

Having that close relationship with other PPA members, that they're more willing to come and see us and go the extra mile to help us achieve what we need to achieve, and we've got a common goal, that's a really relevant and recent initiative that's been definitely strengthened by the fact that it's PPA related.

100% and I think that that letter will go out to PPA members and they'll see the comments that I've made, and I suppose it will validate it from a publisher's perspective to say there are some real benefits to doing this.

That's been a real recent positive benefit to PPA membership, as well as seeing other PPA members we work closely with at events, it’s nice to know that we're in safe hands and we're with the right people and that we've got the right relationships with the right people.

If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day?

I miss the gym, I would like to be able to go to the gym. It's something that; I've never stopped having a membership, I've just stopped going.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

My doggo, Buddy.

What's your guilty pleasure?

Guilty pleasure. Oh my God, that's got to be chocolate. I like to have chocolate.

I'm real rough and ready with my chocolate. None of this sort of, you know, 90% cocoa. It's all Dairy Milk. I suppose I've substituted the exercise for chocolate. I've gone 50% one way and then 50% the other way.

No exercise, chocolate instead. It’s definitely a guilty pleasure.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

Kate Humble.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I'm a bit of a print geek and I love the advice that anything's possible in print. I love it, because it's so true.

Obviously, it comes at a cost, but anything is possible in print, and I use this today, because the guys will come over with loads of creative ideas for their clients and I will use that mantra, you know, can we do that, yes we can.

We'll just work out how to do it, what the best treatment is. We're competing in a really aggressive market so we have to come up with really eye catching treatments and it's good to know that, I've got no fear about saying I can do that.

That helps us be creative with what we do, helps us not be limited in what we can offer.

What/where is your happy place?

My happy place is with my family, with my wife and kids. Doing something with my wife and kids, being out for the day.

I love seeing the kids grow up and I know it's an old cliché, but they're six and half, and seven and a half now and it just whizzes by. Family for me is really important.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

That I have got loads of tattoos.

I've got about 13 But people don't know that.

Being “slightly professional”, I don't think it goes with the office. I started getting them fairly late really. Around the age of 30.

With tattoos, it's like you break the seal and you never go back. Once you've done it, it's like, “okay I'm someone who gets tattoos now,” because there they are.

It becomes a bit moreish. I think, if I didn't have to sleep, I'd go and get the odd tattoo as well.

What would be in your Room 101?

I would put pedestrians that walk out in front of me. I ride a motorbike, and I'm not worried about cars and bikes particularly, because I know where they are on the road. Pedestrians, they come out from the weirdest places right in your face.

This is maybe controversial, but what's that singer? Jess Glynne? Can you put her in there as well?

Introvert or extrovert?

Extrovert.

Optimist or pessimist?

Pessimist.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

Television. I've just started The Handmaid's Tale. It's really good, very depressing.

Sweet or savoury?

Sweet.

Morning person or night owl?

I'm a morning person. You don't get that a lot do you?

I'm up 45 minutes before everyone else in the morning and I have my 45 minutes to an hour on my own, before I then go and get the kids up and take my wife a coffee. Then it all goes mad. If I got up with the madness, I wouldn't be able to cope, so I get up early. I get ahead of the game.

It's the most beautiful part of the day I think, because it's peaceful.

It means a lot to me to get up early and just have that, you know, there's no traffic outside, it's dark, it's quiet, it's peaceful, I love it.

Tea or coffee?

Tea

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

In public I'd like to say they're cringy, but actually I find they really serve a purpose. Sometimes you don't even have to write anything.

The shrug is brilliant, and obviously when I'm talking about chocolate, the dribbly face.

What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

Oh my, well, that was a long time ago. I guess I'm really interested in people, and the storytelling aspect of magazinesreally, appealed to me. I'd always been a big magazine reader, and quite appropriately given that this week we've been celebrating the 150th anniversary of The People's Friend, my grandmother was a _People's Friend_ reader and she used to pass me on her copy, but obviously I'd grown up reading, predominantly, DC Thomson and children's comics. The Beano, The Dandy, The Bunty, onto _The Jackie. The Beano_ was my favourite. I've never worked on it, but I loved the idea of being a girl but reading about these naughty people. I didn't behave like that myself, but it gave me a bit of a thrill to think that I might

It really appealed and, at that time, [publishers] would put an advert in our local newspaper that said, "Write a chatty letter and then come in and speak to us." So, I did and here I am, more than 30 years later, still loving it.

Can you chart your journey from when you started out to your current position?

I started working on The People's Friend magazine in 1989. No, that's a lie. 1984, I started working on The People's Friend magazine. I started as a general Editorial Assistant and I was the Cookery Editor by the time I left.

That gave me the bug for being out and about and meeting lots of collaborators. Quite early in my career, I used to jot up and down to London to meet home economists and things like that, so that was good fun. And then I took a complete change of direction and went to work on a teenage launch, which was Catch Magazine. That was in 1989.

Then I had my son, and I was asked to move onto a parenting title that they had at that time, so I worked there for four or five years. And then, in the mid-1990s, I moved to My Weekly, and I've had an association with _My Weekly_ ever since. So I guess it is properly my baby. And I joined as features editor, worked my way up to Editor, and then became an Editor-In-Chief.

First off with responsibility for My Weekly and _The Scots Magazine_, which was another of our really thriving, we call them heritage products because they've been about for so long.

Then, just last year, I moved on again, and now I'm a Consumer Magazine Publisher with DC Thomson and still have overall responsibility for My Weekly, but there's now a new Editor in place, Stuart Johnstone, who's doing a fantastic job and it's great that he's got the time to concentrate fully on the magazine. I now head up _My Weekly_ and our women's magazine projects, and our portfolio of Scottish magazines, which has now grown from The Scots Magazine. We've now got five different specialist titles with a Scottish flavour.

What's the most unusual situation you've found yourself in because of your job?

Well, I don't know if it's that unusual, but a situation I did find myself in was when I was editor at _My Weekly_, I and lots of other women's magazine Editors were invited to Downing Street to meet then Health Secretary, but also Tony Blair who was Prime Minister at the time.

It was a kind of seminar and we listened to speeches and then, slightly later than anticipated, Tony Blair came into the room and shook everybody's hand and whatnot. It was very welcoming and nice, but we all kind of got the feeling that he seemed quite on edge, and when we left Downing Street and listened to the news, it turned out that had been the day when there'd been the Prime Minister's Questions that were all about the dodgy dossier and Iraq.

I think it was, in some ways, amazing that he still made the time to come and see all these women's magazines Editors. But perhaps not surprising that he was a little bit on edge.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

I don't really, but I suppose, Monday to Thursday I wear dresses and flat shoes and, because I work in Scotland 10 months of the year, thick tights. On a Friday, I always wear my jeans. I suppose how I feel most comfortable is in my jeans and a smart jacket, which is not that surprising in media, but I don't wear it every day of the week.

What do you turn to when you’re on deadline – tea/coffee/snacks?

Chocolate. I am absolute chocoholic. Today is the first day of a month without chocolate, because I'm doing chocolate-free February. Rather than have a New Year's resolution this year, I decided every month I was going to do something different.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

I suppose, now, the thing that people would be surprised about my job is that so much of it is about the numbers, because if your magazines and their associated brand extensions don't make money, then they cease to exist. People are out of a job. I do lots of different things, but I suppose the most important thing that I do is keep an eye on the numbers and react if something's going the wrong way. Or, even better, if something's going the right way, try to work out how to build on that.

At the moment, I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm quite fortunate in that I manage a number of niche titles where there are passionate readers who are invested in the title. Also, because they're quite niche, there are opportunities to diversify and to take your brand to consumers in different ways, and also to bring commercial partners to these niche audiences that they're interested in.

Obviously, the Scottish titles are regional, and some of them are niches within a niche; we have _Scottish Wedding Directory_, which is for Scottish brides and then, _My Weekly_, being such a long established, warm, loving, more mature brand, we have some really engaged consumers there as well. Advertisers realise that it's good to connect with those consumers via a magazine platform, that they're basically not going to find them on Twitter, let's be honest.

Walk me through your typical day.

I don't have a typical day. I absolutely don't have a typical day. I guess every day I will check in with the Editors of my different titles, just to make sure that everything's going well, which obviously, they've got it totally in hand. I probably catch up with my emails first thing in the morning. Everybody probably says that, but really, honestly, there is no typical day.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

When I first started being aware of PPA and started getting involved, it was very helpful from a learning perspective; going to Magfest, attending seminars, and learning from other people in the industry and what they do, and also partners within the industry and what they do. It's been really valuable to me, as well, that colleagues and team members have been able to take advantage of that.

Now, I would say, because I'm fortunate enough to be involved in the Scottish Exec Committee and also now to be chair of the Scottish Committee, I have opportunities to meet with my peers and to talk about business opportunities where we might be able to help one another.

I really intend to build on that during the two years that I'm chair of the Exec Committee. Not just, obviously, for me and my company but helping to connect people because there are great opportunities and challenges for us all to look at.

I think we've reached a point in the magazine industry where we realise that there's a lot to be gained from working together and from supporting one another. It would really make me happy to feel that, even in a small way, I can help to make that happen or help to make it happen more.

*If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day? *

If I had more time, I would read more. Reading is the one thing that I don't have enough time to do. I read a little bit more now than I did until recently because I've started commuting to work on the train and joined a workplace book club, so that's great.

Even just keeping up with what's going on in the industry on top of your leisure reading, you could spend all day doing that.

The most recent book that I read was called _The Diary of a Bookseller_, and that was quite interesting. It's a gentleman who owns a bookshop in Wigtown, which is quite a small town in Scotland where they run a book fair every year and it's kind of revitalized the local economy. It was just really interesting to read about someone operating on the frontline in an industry that's not that far away from ours.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

It’s the table centrepiece from The People’s Friend’s 150th anniversary party in London.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

What's my guilty pleasure? I don't feel guilty about my pleasures.

I like watching game shows if I've got an afternoon off. You know, The Chase and Tipping Point and things like that? But I don't feel guilty about it, you're allowed something every day.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

I think I would like to have Barack Obama's phone number, so that I could phone him up and say, "So, what do you think about all that's going on just now, Barack?"or"How would you resolve the Brexit deal for us, please?"

What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Okay, the worst piece of advice I have ever been given was when I was first in a position where I managed other people, and somebody said to me that I needed to, quotes, "Man up" and basically be a forceful, "just do it" kind of manager.

I had a few months of soul-searching and feeling quite uncomfortable on the back of that. It's not how I believe you should manage people. I think you get the best out of people by nurturing and supporting.

What/where is your happy place?

Edinburgh is my happy place. I think it's the most beautiful city, or I think it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and I spend a lot of my weekends there and lose myself in culture and music and theatre. It makes me happy.

I'm from Scotland. I've never lived more than a couple of hours away from Edinburgh, but I spend a lot more time there now than I used to. Quite often I'll go through on a Friday night and meet my husband. I'll go on the train and he'll take the car through and then I step out of the train at Haymarket and walk up towards Princes Street, which is the centre of town, and I just kind of feel like all my cares just … Not that I have lots of cares, but just feeling myself relax.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I've always really loved cars. I love driving, I love talking about cars, I love talking about weird technical stuff like what size of engine they've got and how they've been tuned and things like that.

I love to look at a Lamborghini. I'm never going to have one, but I love to look at one. But I did have a Ford Capri like all sad petrolheads of my vintage. Well, in fact, I had two Ford Capris, one after the other.

I've been to Monaco, which is an amazing place. The Grand Prix wasn't on at the time I was there, but rather than sightseeing, I just walked round where the track was and went, "This is where Piquet overtook whoever."

I'm quite a big Lewis Hamilton fan. I do think he's an amazing driver. I've always had a little bit of a soft spot for Brazilian drivers, so Massa, Barrichello, Senna before that. Of the current crop, I think Hamilton's head and shoulders above the rest of them.

What would be in your Room 101?

Well, I'm quite easily irritated by noise, so yeah. Just generally people talking too loudly on trains and planes. I do have a set of noise cancelling headphones to maintain my sanity, but I was on a train journey last week and even with them on, all I could hear was this guy on the phone endlessly talking nonsense.

Introvert or extrovert?

I actually think I'm a combination of both. I love being with people, but I need my own space as well sometimes.

Optimist or pessimist?

Optimist. 100%.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

TV. I always watch things behind, I wait until people tell me, "This was good," and then I watch it. So the most recent thing I did that with was _The ABC Murders_, that was on at Christmas. I love the cinema, but I don't go that often.

Sweet or savoury?

Savoury. I love cheese, especially Danish Blue.

Morning person or night owl?

Night owl.

Tea or coffee?

Coffee.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

I think they're really cool, and yes, I do use them. The one that I like best is the wink with its tongue sticking out.