Expertise
- Presentations
- Public Speaking
- Presentation Skills Course
- Public Speaking Confidence
- presentation anxiety
- Anxiety
- Nerves
- Sales
- Selling
- Pitches
- Pitching
- leadership
- workshop
- Communication Skills
- Storytelling
- Motivation
- Strategy
- Presentation
- intercultural communications
Summary
I am fascinated by and passionate about good presenting and pitching and love to teach others to do the same, in any sector for any audience. A trained teacher, and with extensive global experience delivering (and observing) hundreds of plenaries and interactive workshops over my lifetime, I am an established presenter for hire in my industry and am proud of my reputation as an engaging and effective speaker, and have worked very hard to be the best I can be.
For anyone in any industry, I run one- or two-day F2F bespoke courses on presenting or pitching, including some focused modules on confidence and mindset if needed (these are very popular), plus online classes on presentation skills coaching. To give a presentation can be for a conference but also for a high stakes meeting with just a few people, or an interview. So I coach anyone for any scenario.
Experience
-
Thomson/Cengage Learning
General Manager
101 - 500 Employees 2006 - 2007- Regional sales and P&L responsibility for Europe, Middle East, Africa (ELT division)
- Successfully implemented sales strategy to a new entire EMEA distributor network
- Oversaw a publisher acquisition and integration into existing list and distribution channels
- Managed and trained staff including acquired new publisher in Greece.
- Collaborated on editorial conversion of US English list to a British English offer (later Cengage/NGL)
- Winner of 2006 Thomson Learning Special Achievement Award
-
Scholastic / Mary Glasgow Magazines
International Sales Manager
101 - 500 Employees 2000 - 2006- Grew business from 5 clients to over 30 pro-active distributor customers across five continents
- Worked with co-edition clients to treble turnover within 5 years starting from £200k.
- Created new model to enter the Eastern Europe (including Russia) to go from zero to £300k in 4 years
- Rapidly expanded the European market for Scholastic USA’s selected children’s book lists via ELT channels
- Created training for teachers and sales reps, using magazines, children’s books (KG, YA fiction/non-fiction)
- Trainer for Scholastic UK (MGM) and Scholastic USA (reading teacher training and ELT with picture books)
-
KELTIC
International Sales Manager
21 - 100 Employees 1992 - 2000- Sales visits and presentations throughout UK, Europe and Southeast Asia to win school and HE accounts.
- Tripled turnover for international ELT distribution and London bookshop (£1m to £3m)
- Created all marketing collateral and direct mail campaigns | Event management / product launches
- Made the company market leader as information service and supplier for ELT software
- Developed CRM system and company’s first website
-
Sales Representative – UK and German-speaking countries
Sales Representative
101 - 500 Employees 1990 - 1992- Sales responsibility for UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland
- Visits, presentations and author tours to institutions, libraries, booksellers
- Editorial liaison for new titles
-
First Impression Communications Ltd.
Director
1 - 5 Employees 2007 - Current- Presentations Coach
- Sales and presentations training for education and publishing representatives
- Sales consultant and trainer for products/services worldwide for ELT publishers and EdTech companies
Education History
-
German and English Linguistics
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
1982 - 1986
Qualifications
- EFL Teacher Training Cert
- Intercultural Skills
Clubs and Associations
- Glasgow Improv Theatre
- Glasgow Film theatre
- Tennis
Interests and Hobbies
- Film and film studies
- playing guitar
- public speaking
- live storytelling
- performing improv
- tennis
- comedy
- travel
- language study
- podcasts
- creative writing
