35 Years of award winning media

PR, Communications, & Brand Strategies
Media, Comms & Event HostingLeadership,Coaching & Change Management

ABOUT ME

Media & Management Consultancy

  • Brand Strategy & PR
  • Reputational/Crisis Management
  • Media & Strategic Communications
  • Event Hosting & Moderating
  • Leadership & management training
  • Executive coaching & mentoring
  • Media and ethics training

Award-winning National and Regional Editor with 35 years’ experience leading and managing National, Regional, Sunday, Daily and Weekly newspaper and magazine titles across the UK, including The Herald; Herald on Sunday; The Sunday Post; My Weekly, The People’s Friend, The Glasgow Evening Times; and The Aberdeen Evening Express

Board roles Trustee for Partick Housing Association Chief Examiner (Leadership) for the National Council for the Training of Journalists

MEDIA

Skills & Experience

Media consultant with excellent contacts, particularly across press, politics and business.

Key clients include the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, Barrhead Travel Group, R&D tax specialists Minerva Innovation Group, and the pioneering 9CC Group.

Management of major media & publishing businesses (including Newsquest Scotland; DC Thomson; Northcliffe, Iliffe, & CN Group) with responsibility for the brand; editorial strategy; business transformation; external communications, engagement & relationships.

Editor-in-Chief of Newsquest Scotland from 2017 to August 2022 and Editor of The Herald and the Evening Times and Launch Editor of the Herald on Sunday. The multi-media portfolio included The Greenock Telegraph, 21 titles in Central Scotland and the Impartial Reporter in Northern Ireland.

Head of Publishing from 2015 for DC Thomson’s magazines including The People’s Friend, My Weekly and the Scots Mag. Key role as part of the executive management team to modernise working practices and create a portfolio of new launch products.

Editor-in-Chief Newspapers DC Thomson. Editor of The Sunday Post and The Weekly News from 2010. Appointed Editor-in-Chief of DC Thomson Newspapers Group in 2011.  Key role to refresh The Sunday Post, an iconic legacy brand, make it competitive and relevant in a changing marketplace and create a sustainable long-term future.

Editor-in-Chief Herald & Times Group 2008 -2010 and Editor of The Herald. Key role to restructure the business, including integrating The Herald, Herald on Sunday, and Evening Times as a joint 7-day digitally-focused operation.

Additional and previous media roles included:

EDITOR: Evening Times; EDITOR: Evening Express (Aberdeen Journals Ltd);

EDITOR & DIRECTOR: North West Evening Mail (CN Group); DEPUTY EDITOR: Cambridge Evening News; PRODUCTION EDITOR: Reading Evening Post. 

GROUP EDITOR: Thames Valley Free Newspapers.

LAUNCH EDITOR: Edinburgh and Lothians Post – aged 24.

35 Years on the front page

BranD, PR & Communication

Reputational brand management, event hosting and communication skills

Frontline experience of managing brand reputation in the face of hostile scrutiny from media, politicians, and key business clients during numerous periods of business restructuring and transformation.

Leading iconic and treasured brands such as The Herald and the Sunday Post through seismic change required carefully planned communications and engagement, both internally and externally, to ensure successful delivery and positive PR.

More than three decades of experience as a public facing barometer of societal moods and trends; morality and ethics. Intuitive understanding of public opinion, key issues and importance of brand values and media management.

Brand ambassador/host, including the annual Barrhead Travel Group conferences, Scottish Chambers of Conference roundtable debates, the inaugural 9CC Group conference, the Scottish Politician of the Year Awards and the UK Society of Editors conferences.  

Regularly participated in events, including the NY Times Cop26 debates; The Athens Democracy Forum; and Future News Worldwide.

Comfortable in front of camera, on radio and on stage and able to tailor brand messages and delivery for different audiences.

  • Made strategic brand decisions to allow the BBC to film A Century of Scottish Sundays: 100 years of the Sunday Post  and The Papers where cameras were given unrestricted access to The Herald editorial for six months. Used the opportunity to change reader perceptions, provide insight and understanding, and increase customer loyalty and engagement.
  • Two years as host of the Go Radio Business Show with Sir Tom Hunter and Lord Willie Haughey

    SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

    Regulatory compliance, governance & ethics

    Extensive practical experience of overseeing legal and regulatory compliance and governance. Former Scottish media representative on the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) Editors’ Code Committee and former member of the Press Complaints Commission’s adjudication panel.

    Board Trustee with Partick Housing Association and previously The Mungo Foundation.

    Passionate supporter of Media Freedom and a speaker on ethics, fake news and journalism at the Athens Democracy Forum debating Truth & Democracy, and the Future News Worldwide conferences for aspiring journalists.

    Can also deliver entertaining interactive media ethics sessions and behind the headlines talks for businesses.

    Coaching & Mentoring 

    Leadership & People Skills

    Including internal team building, coaching, mentoring, and influencing during periods of seismic and difficult changes. I am a CMI coach and have guided numerous dynamic management teams and executives – and take enormous pride in the fact many have become editors, MDs, or publishers.

    At times of business transformation and tough conversations, it is important the leadership team have the skills and understanding to both deliver key messages in the right manner and have the resilience and coping mechanism to handle the impact of being the face of that upheaval and disruption.

    Values

    • Trusted & confidential
    • Respected
    • Fair and balanced
    • Measured and considered
    • Empathy and understanding

    I have built a career and strong contacts book on the back of my own personal key values; never breaking a confidence and being prepared to listen to all sides before acting in a measured, fair and proportionate manner. It chimes with my commitment to a free press regulated by IPSO and my industry work on journalism standards and ethics.

    Change Management

    Successfully led businesses, iconic national brands and individuals through change management and culture shifts: restructuring staffing, systems, and processes to drive efficiencies, implement modern best practice and future proof the businesses.

    • The newspaper industry has faced the enormous challenges of managing the decline of its traditional commercial markets whilst trying to create and build opportunities for growth in a highly competitive digital landscape. I have been at the eye of the storm for several decades, delivering change and success.

    Board Positions

    Longest serving board member of the UK Society of Editors, the organisation representing the media industry. Previously, a board member of the National Council for the Training of Journalists where I am now Chief Examiner of the Leadership course I built for the industry.

    Previously UK & Scottish President of the Society of Editors and Chair of the Scottish Daily Newspapers, and on the Advisory Board of Future News Worldwide, an organisation promoting quality journalism and standards.

    Former Scottish media representative on the IPSO Editors’ Code Committee and former member of the Press Complaints Commission’s adjudication panel.

    Get In Touch

    T. 07711 451330
    info@dmmediaconsultancy.co.uk