Curriculum Vitae

Ad Operations Manager with over twenty years in national newspaper and magazine advertising production. Currently at The Observer.

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Profile

I manage print advertising operations for national titles: the work of getting a booked advertisement, in the correct format and to the correct specification, onto the right page before the press deadline.

Across twenty-four years I have moved from producing classified pages at Auto Trader, through a decade of advertising artwork and template design at Hearst, to running an independent advertising operation for a national Sunday newspaper. The constant has been deadline-critical delivery across commercial, editorial and production teams that do not naturally speak the same language.

I am equally comfortable in InDesign and in a process review. Several of my most useful contributions have been systems rather than artwork: template frameworks, documented workflows, and an internal WordPress advertising portal that replaced a paid third-party product.

Experience

The full timeline, including pre-2006 roles, is on the Experience page.

Skills

Operations

  • Advertising operationsExpert
  • Campaign deliveryExpert
  • Ad trafficking & schedulingExpert
  • Deadline managementExpert
  • Quality controlExpert

Production & Design

  • Print productionExpert
  • Artwork & layoutExpert
  • Pre-press & colourAdvanced
  • Template systemsExpert
  • Brand complianceAdvanced

Software

  • Adobe InDesignExpert
  • Adobe PhotoshopExpert
  • Adobe IllustratorAdvanced
  • Adobe AcrobatExpert
  • WordPressAdvanced
  • FigmaWorking
  • Google WorkspaceAdvanced

Management

  • Project managementAdvanced
  • Stakeholder managementExpert
  • Team onboarding & mentoringAdvanced
  • Process improvementAdvanced
  • Cross-department coordinationExpert

Key achievements

  • Established independent ad operations at The Observer during the title’s transition to new ownership, with no disruption to weekly press deadlines.
  • Onboarded and trained a new production team in Poland to fully independent operation, then handed over documented process.
  • Designed reusable ad-feature template systems adopted across multiple Hearst brands, materially reducing per-feature setup time.
  • Built an internal WordPress advertising portal removing dependence on a paid external system.
  • Expanded the Rhapsody account by securing additional production work on Delicious magazine.

Education & qualifications

NVQ, Mechanical Engineering
Vocational qualification
8 GCSEs
Including English and Mathematics

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