What was your first ever job?
Digging up Stone Age skeletons on top of a windy hill in Dorset
Why did you get into the world of media and publishing?
Skeletons don’t pay well. So I began writing about the ancient world for an art history publisher, then considered my options and shifted to derivatives publishing
What does your current role entail?
Talking to financial industry experts. Uncovering the essence of financial industry strategies. Then re-articulating them in new ways and new media to a wider audience
What’s the favourite part of your current role?
Exploring how to make words and images help each other rather than fight for the reader’s attention. The interplay between word, image, video and design is fascinating
If you could ban one buzzword or piece of jargon what would it be?
Impactful, which proves an expression can be concise and ugly at the same time
What is the most exciting thing about your job?
Seeing our digital design team turn a story or concept that I just discussed with a client into something beautiful that draws in the viewer
What’s the best book you have ever read?
Here’s hoping it turns out to be Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain: I’m many months in and only halfway to the top. That’s a major sunk investment
And favourite film?
Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal is poetry one moment and near self-parody the next. I like the awkwardness. But I’ll watch anything if I have a curry in one hand and a lager in the other. I’m not the master of my own TV remote, so a catholic taste is essential
What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
Go to bed at 9.30. Like all good advice it’s impossible to follow