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Martin Hennessey
Martin is our MD. A former print and broadcast journalist, he founded The Writer in 2000. He has worked on editorial strategy with Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, BT and Imagination. He's also a founder member of business writers' group 26, and a former judge of the Writing for Design category at the D&AD Awards.
John Simmons
John's a former director of verbal identity at Interbrand and author of several business bestsellers, including We, Me, Them & It – the power of words in business. He co-edited The Economist Guide to Brands and Branding, writes a regular column about brands in the Observer, and is series editor of the Great Brand stories. John's also a founder member of business writers group 26, and has served on the Writing for Design jury at the D&AD awards, once as chairman.
Training
Neil Taylor
Neil spends most of his time training people to become better writers at work. He works with people like the BBC, Unilever and Ofgem. When he's not doing that, he also writes, comes up with names, and helps brands define their tone of voice. He's written two books on branding, The Name of the Beast, on naming, and Search Me: The surprising success of Google. He's written for the Guardian, Design Week and regularly appears on CNN. He's a former senior consultant at Interbrand, and is on the board of not-for-profit writers' group 26.
Nick Parker
We're feeling rather smug that we've lured Nick away from the magazine world to run workshops for us. He spent five years as deputy editor of The Oldie — ‘the most original magazine in the country' (so said the Independent). Since he joined us he's been training people like BT, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Pension Protection Fund and NB Real Estate. He also wrote a monthly column for Director magazine debunking business jargon, and his short stories also turn up regularly in anthologies and on Radio 4.
Brand language
Rob Mitchell
Rob advises brands like O2, Standard Life, Radox, D&AD and Tate about their tone of voice and words. Rob's worked on projects for the BBC, Interflora, Citibank and Coors Brewers for his former company, Mitchell Conner Searson – a company he co-founded. He's also written for Brandchannel and Businessweek.
Molly Mackey
Molly helps organisations bring their brands, products and ideas to life with words. She's worked with the LDA, BHF and DfT among other acronyms, and has helped O2, Tate, lastminute.com and Cadbury's express themselves more clearly. Molly started her career at Penguin Books and BBC Radio 1, where she kept various DJs under control. She walks everywhere and talks a lot.
Writing
Anelia Varela
Anelia's career has spanned one decade and two continents, from Ogilvy & Mather in South Africa to The Writer in London, via a few branding and design agencies in between. At The Writer, she has written for brands like Guinness, Young Vic, Ellesse and Loseley Ice Cream, and managed major writing projects for Kickers, BP and Bacardi. Past clients include BMW/MINI, Coca-Cola, London Studios, LEGO and New Balance.
Adam Kaveney
Adam joined us after a long spell writing for Virgin Mobile. He was worried about becoming typecast, so he came to The Writer. Then started writing about mobiles for O2. He's also written for people like Nike, Greenpeace and Swiss Re, plus some property companies and law firms. When he's not doing that, he coaches people to become better writers at work. His desk is absurdly tidy and he has a snack drawer.
Ed Sowerby
Ed's written all sorts, including stuff for Nike, Kickers, Ellesse and Sky. He has written a special project about CSR for Superbrands, BT's 2007 and 2008 graduate recruitment campaigns, and a graduate recruitment brochure for Mazars that won a Communicators in Business (CiB) Award of Excellence in 2006. He's also worked on naming projects for 3 and BT.
Maia Swift
Maia joined us after graduating from Cambridge where she spent three years writing about weddings and fairytales. She now works for brands like BT and Tate, to help them write and sound better. Recent projects include a brand book for Ellesse, and tone of voice work for lastminute.com.
Joe Weir
Joe started here as The Writer's apprentice, but we wouldn't let him leave. He's just finished an MA in Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, where he wrote a screenplay. Since being at The Writer, Joe's written for companies like Kickers, o2 and Toshiba.
Project management
Sara Hulf
Sara's our head of project management. She makes sure we get things done - on time and on budget. She also smells nice because she spent five years working at The Body Shop, keeping a beady eye on their design, marketing and production departments. Sara also managed the production of The Body Shop's annual report, before she was poached by one of their print suppliers. There, she was in charge of getting big print projects out the door in record time. Now she keeps all our words (and budgets and schedules) in check.
Anya Zhuravkina
Anya, as her name suggests, is Russian, but she's lived in England for a large chunk of her life. She often goes back to visit family and stock up on Russian chocolate and cranberry vodka. Before The Writer she ran market research for Land Rover and Honda. She now looks after BT at The Writer.
Caroline Finch
Caroline's background is in corporate communications, working for agencies and clients. She's particularly proud managing a bi-monthly publication for Shell in 12 languages and the Carbon Trust's 2006 annual report. Caroline has chaired the last two annual conferences and awards events for Communicators in Business (CiB) and sits on the board of directors. Her ultra-organised desk is a wonder to behold.
Tara Jones
Tara spent five and half years as a director's PA at River Island before leaving the world of free clothes to study Psychology with Linguistics as a mature student. After graduating she volunteered at a Kenyan orphanage and travelled round Africa, South East Asia and New Zealand. Soon after returning to the UK Tara joined The Writer, where she now co-ordinates all our training and manages writing projects for clients like O2, NB Real Estate and the BBC.
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