Profiles of the Mavericks

Michael Margotta, Senior Associate/Head of Global Business Development

Michael is a Senior Maverick Associate and Head of Global Business development. In addition to providing consultation for publishing and e-distribution strategies, he is responsible for all Maverick business development operations and activities.

With over 25 years senior management experience, both as Head of an STM publishing house and providing consultation for e-distribution platforms, Michael specializes in new business development, acquisitions, operations management, vendor service proposal analysis, contract negotiations, customer relations and marketing. He has worked extensively in journal start-ups, book projects, reference work series and database development with specific focus on creating e-distribution platforms suited to the content needs. Michael has in-depth knowledge of world markets and has provided support services for publishers of all sizes and in a variety of subject disciplines.

Prior to joining Maverick, Michael was Director of Sales and Marketing for MetaPress, a division of EBSCO, Inc. where he provided electronic content hosting solutions assisting publishers reach target academic audiences, at consortia, institutional and individual levels. Prior to that, he was the President, CEO and primary shareholder at Technomic Publishing Company, a producer of high quality scientific and medical reference books and primary research journals in major technological areas including material science, biomaterials and pharmaceutical science.

Michael began his career in engineering as an avionics flight test engineer. In addition to his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Carolina, Michael also earned an MBA degree from Brenau College.

Will Moore, Senior Marketing Associate/Head of US Operations

Will has more than 10 years of experience delivering innovative marketing for both start-up and established technology companies in the publishing, software and computer hardware industries.

Most recently, Will was VP of Marketing for Ingram Digital where he helped to transform that company from a startup to the leading provider of comprehensive digital services for publishers

Will's has extensive experience in brand strategy and management; Market Research; PR and marketing communications; product development and launch; partner relations and segment marketing. In addition, Will has experience in non-traditional marketing activities such as social media and guerrilla marketing

Over the past 10 years, Will has held a progression of marketing roles. As a product manager at IBM, Will managed a variety of PC product lines, each generating in excess of $1B in revenue. He was also charged with managing relationships with IBM's key PC business partners and ISV's. Later, for VitalSource, Will was charged with establishing a marketing department and building awareness for VitalSource products and services. Today, VitalSource is the industry acknowledged leading format for e-textbooks. At Ingram Digital, he led a marketing organization that transformed the marketing and messaging from four disparate, acquired companies into a single, cohesive approach and executed an aggressive marketing plan that quickly established Ingram Digital's solutions as leaders in their respective markets.

Sara Killingworth, Senior Marketing Associate + Market Analyst

A marketing professional with over 16 years' experience, Sara is Maverick's senior market analyst and marketing project manager. Over the last 5 years she has consulted and ran major, large scale marketing and market research projects for both education providers, as well as government backed education bodies in the UK.

With particular expertise in customer segmentation, qualitative and quantitative market research, feedback methodologies and trend/gap analysis, Sara works closely with our clients not only to identify their current market, product or proposition perception but also developing trends in their customer or user needs and demands. Alongside other Maverick associates she also works closely with clients to interpret market research and feedback results and convert them into effective, results driven market or customer retention, response or development strategies.

Previously Sara worked within the publishing industry as a Senior Strategic Marketing Manager for ProQuest Information and Learning. Here, her key responsibilities included strategic management of major product lines, incorporating marketing strategies, communications, new product development, market research, marketing planning, sales budgeting and product training in addition to competitor and market analysis.

 Eric Helff, Senior Marketing Associate

Eric Helff has been in the Marketing and Content Creation arena for over 20 years, and has played a key role in developing both digital and printed content for the high-tech industry for most of his career.

Eric's expertise is focusing on web-based marketing and online content management. He is Maverick's U.S.-based Senior Associate specializing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), digital content creation and management, web marketing strategic planning, rich web content creation, and web site architecting. Eric provides strategic counsel and content creation services to increase the effectiveness of web-based communications for our publishing company clients.

Eric began his marketing career at Hewlett-Packard, where he recruited a group of new, formerly untapped VARs and distributors to successfully sell H-P's larger format printers and plotters. After seven years he joined a startup at Pacific Data Products in San Diego before moving onto IBM in 1996 as their Director of Web Marketing. Whilst at IBM he established and directed the worldwide marketing team responsible for the world-renowned ThinkPad notebook brand, among others. He also pioneered the first 3D product demos on the IBM website, helping drive sales for the company's first direct-selling business. Eric also successfully developed and deployed all the web-based content on IBM's site for major alliances including Intel, Microsoft and AMD.

This included developing rich content in multiple languages for over twenty countries. Before joining Maverick, Eric spent three years as Director of Web Content at Lenovo, delivering both online and offline marketing strategy and operations before establishing his own marketing consultancy in 2008. 

Minty Colquhoun, Senior Marketing Associate

An award winning, service-driven and commercially minded professional, Minty holds a sound track record in producing strategic marketing initiatives which deliver value to both clients and their customers. With an emphasis on delivering clear and measurable results, maximising ROI and improving performance profitability, her areas of expertise include: Branding, Marketing Strategies, Business Plans and Feasibility Studies, Market Research, New Product Development, Copy Writing, PR and Design

With over ten years’ professional marketing expertise, Minty assists a wide variety of national and multi-national companies as well as SME organisations in both private and public industries.  Minty began her career with Blackwell’s Information Services where she earned a Spotlight award for outstanding service, before going on to gain wider experience within the Life Sciences and IT sectors.  As Marketing Manager for a software start-up she successfully grew the department’s activities within two years to win Oracle’s prestigious Award for Innovation in 2009.  Minty is also an active member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing where she currently chairs the Hampshire & Isle of Wight regional branch.
 

Megan Toogood, Marketing Associate

Megan specializes in creating and implementing integrated marketing campaigns that use PR, advertising, print collateral, static websites and social media to engage potential customers. This work is backed up by experience in strategic brand and product development.

Megan joined Maverick from Semantico, a UK based publishing services and technology platform provider, where she was responsible for marketing and PR, and widely recognised as editor of their globally recognised "Discovery Blog".

A business writer with an interest in SEO and SEM techniques who has achieved top ten Google rankings for highly competitive terms, Megan's interest in language and communication has also led to work with the National Literacy Council improving the life chances of young people unconfident in their literacy skills.

With a background in archaeology; film and television production; film festivals; public funding of the arts; independent retail and e-commerce, Megan brings fresh perspectives to marketing in the publishing sector and a particular drive to convert eMarketing strategies into practical brand exposure and revenue generating results.

Howard Blythe, Senior Marketing Associate

Howard provides Maverick with nearly two decades of experience in corporate, graphic, exhibition and website design. He works in consultation with our clients in the conception, design and production of online and offline marketing and market research activities – including brand development, pricing and product placement, physical market presence (point of use; point of presence) and marketing materials. His team have experience across all traditional and digital marketing and market feedback/interaction channels (including online surveying and analysis, SEO, Social Networking and multimedia marketing) and have worked with the widest range of specific market requirements and available budgets.

Howard's clients include leading information industry intermediaries and publishers. Howard's background includes the establishment and ownership of 212Design – a full marketing services company that he ran for 11 years. Howard and his team have in-depth experience of working as strategic or operational marketing consultants, for large corporations as well as "start-ups" and specialist niche suppliers.

Anna Drage, Senior Production Specialist / Account Management Associate

Anna has spent the last 20 years working in the academic publishing industry, specializing in the editorial and production side of electronic publishing. Her broad-based experience of both e-book and e-journal production, and her understanding of how editorial processes feed into this process, has supported publishers as diverse as OUP, Walter de Gruyter, and Woodhead Publishing, via online hosts such as Highwire, Atypon, and MetaPress. Working both for and with publishers, Anna has gained a valuable insight into the production workflow of journals and e-books, the use of electronic data in online publishing, and working with third party online hosts.

After an early career as assistant editor for a specialist publisher, Anna worked for Oxford University Press in editorial and print production for their Science and Medical Books as well as their Journals Division, where she specialized in electronic production and online hosting. As their Online Project Manager, she managed the transition of OUP hosted journals to a third party host (Highwire) and acted as the main contact between in house editorial/production staff and Highwire.

In 2003 she moved to OUP Pakistan as Design Manager for Educational Books before returning to the UK as production manager at Medic to Medic, a company providing software solutions to the NHS. In 2006, Anna moved back into the academic publishing, firstly an Account manager for Atypon Systems Inc, and then Senior Client Manager at Publishing Technology. In both these roles she acted as the day-to-day liaison with Publishers, as well as helping them develop their online products and product strategies. Anna’s current assignments include working as the ‘E-Project Manager’ for a UK based publisher, working with their in-house teams to establish a new e-book platform using a third party vendor.
 

Liam Chambers, Senior Technology / Product Management Associate

Liam has been in the electronic information industry for nearly 20 years, working for companies such as Aslib the Association for Information management, SilverPlatter information, Lendac Data Systems and Propylon.

Liam's expertise lies in the areas of customer/account management in terms of their use of online based content delivery solutions as well as digital product and project management.

He has managed numerous product development/product launch campaigns as well as sales and marketing support services for a succession of national and international content owners including Barbour, the Institute of Chartered Accountants and three of the world's largest publishers, Thomson, Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer. Over the past five years his projects and consultancy have typically dealt with online content discovery, delivery and usage with particular focus on platform usability and customer value perception.

His projects have won numerous awards including the Irish 2005 InsideGovernment award for an innovative bi-lingual integration project inside the Irish Parliament. Liam specializes in working with Publishers of all sizes and market sectors to define their product offerings, take new products to market and online/offline customer retention strategies.

Aviva Weinstein, Senior Associate, European Business Development

Aviva holds over 18 years experience in marketing and business development.  With particular industry and market knowledge spanning EMEA and Asia Pacific, she has spent the last five years focused on selling and marketing all aspects of digital content including e-books, databases and e-journals.  Aviva’s core skills include strategy development, research and planning as well as market development / communications and direct sales negotiation and sales channel development.

Due to her background, Aviva also has in-depth expertise in all areas of digital publishing technology, product management and marketing – ranging from project conception to implementation, operational management as well as technical writing and training.

With extensive experience in growing businesses across all markets, from developing strategy through to implementation and analysis, Aviva currently works with Maverick’s clients in publishing strategy, marketing, publisher relations and sales.  She also is responsible for Maverick’s business development in Europe.

Prior to joining Maverick Aviva worked as International Sales Manager for Oxford University Press.  There she was responsible for managing online resource sales in EMEA, Southern Asia and ANZ as well as institutional e-book aggregator channel relationships outside of the Americas.  Prior to joining Oxford University Press she was a Senior Strategic Marketing Manager for Ingram Digital.  In this role she served as global product marketing lead for the company’s digital asset management and library offerings as well as managing EMEA marketing. A native of New Jersey, USA, Aviva holds a BA from the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Louise Weale, Senior Business Development Associate

Louise has in-depth experience in both digital and print publishing. With a background in Publisher Business Development and Digital Licensing (and having worked for Industry leaders such as Ingram Digital), Louise has been promoting and selling a wide variety of digital asset management and electronic information/multimedia delivery solutions to publishers of all sectors for many years.

With additional expertise and in-depth knowledge of licensing for eContent delivery through all relevant digital sales channels, Louise has maintained and developed new business and revenue growth for key publisher accounts across the STM, Education, Corporate as well as Trade market sectors. At Ingram Digital, Louise was also involved in the project development of a number of eContent collections and was responsible for the acquisition and delivery of key digital content for aggregated eBook platforms, eLearning and educational eTextbooks delivery services, Digital Asset Management solutions as well as Retail and Wholesale online eContent/eCommerce products.

Louise is a Senior Business Development Associate for Maverick as well as playing a crucial role in the delivery of digital licensing consultancy, publisher/aggregator representation, technology solution sales support as well as eContent distribution channel negotiation for all our publisher clients.

Most recently Louise has been involved working in International Rights and Licensing, negotiating and securing international licenses for specialist consumer magazines. Louise has an LLB Hons in Law and PGDip in Legal Practice.

Mark Furneaux, Senior Associate for Sales and Business Development

Mark has a wealth of electronic publishing experience, from both a strategic and day to day, operational perspective. Previously Managing Director, European Operations at CSA, Mark headed up CSA’s European activities with responsibility for all regional sales, marketing, editorial and G&A operations.

He later joined ProQuest as part of the CSA/ProQuest merger before leaving in 2007 to join Wize Nordic as Business Development Director. Mark joins Maverick as Senior Associate for Sales and Business Development will provide publisher sales and marketing support in European markets as well as assisting Maverick’s own business development initiatives in International regions.

Mariam Hasan, Business Development Associate

Mariam has over 12 years senior international publishing experience and brings valuable knowledge of the region to support Maverick’s expanding operations in the North America region. Her expertise includes past positions in global product development at ProQuest Information and Learning for the ABI/INFORM suite of databases as well as sales management and content development for 30 peer-reviewed journals at Palgrave Macmillan.

Most recently, Mariam worked for Emerald as Vice President, Canada where she significantly increased Emerald's local market presence and built a strong market for their e-books. Mariam currently provides local market strategy formulation and sales management support for Maverick's clients and their e-book products and services.

Tricia Horner, Human Resources Associate

Tricia is an energetic and accomplished Human Resource professional with extensive board level and European HR experience, and proven success in delivering change across several business sectors.

Tricia's career includes over 17 years in the educational publishing sector, during that period holding directorial positions in Blackwell Ltd, Nelson Thornes and internationally, with Infinitas Learning.

She is a leader with a reputation for inspiring, developing and empowering staff, and building successful communication strategies and initiatives.

She works to create enabling performance cultures that successfully align with the business strategy, engaging organisations through effective identification and development of talent.

She was involved in the private equity purchase of the Wolters Kluwer's Educational publishing business by Bridgepoint Capital from Wolters Kluwer, and led many, significant change initiatives, as the company transitioned from a print based product offering, to an online, subscription-based service.

Rosie Grimes, Associate

Rosie has spent over 22 years working in the academic journal sector, specializing in editorial processes and journal content development for two learned society publishers. In her early career at Institute of Physics Publishing, she developed in-depth knowledge of peer review and she worked extensively with the academic Editors and Editorial Boards to shape and develop their journals.

After nine years at IOP Publishing, she joined the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, as Journals Publisher, to develop its portfolio of journals. In addition to working on development of existing journals and investigating potential new journals, Rosie managed the transition from paper to online publishing (working with a number of online hosts over the years), the selection process and implementation of online peer review for the journals, and the introduction of anti-plagiarism software to improve author service.

She successfully grew the Institution's journals business whilst continuing online product development, seeking cost-effective efficiencies and optimal use of software solutions.

Caroline Gorski, Associate and Business Analyst

Caroline has more than15 years experience in strategic marketing consultancy, business process re-engineering and project management, across multiple industry sectors including academic and professional publishing, FMCG, retail financial services and business services. She has worked to facilitate board-level strategic planning and decision-making at a range of Global 2,500 companies, as well as helping start-up organisations in the digital sector to grow successfully to operational effectiveness.

Her key skills areas include Strategic market analysis and commercial decision-making; New product and new sector marketing, digital marketing; Business process analysis and re-design, business change implementation; Project management and programme office management (PRINCE2, Scrum, Agile); Coaching, training and team development.

Caroline's publishing experience includes work at Oxford University Press, Reed Elsevier, Trinity Mirror, Infinitas Learning and Pearson International. She began her strategic consulting career at Forrester Research, the leading US technology consulting firm, where she specialised in research covering UK Internet users, mobile/device internet usage and enterprise mobile technology development. In 2003, she was appointed Strategy Research Manager for Sodexo UK, where she oversaw the development of the strategic planning function for the 40,000-employee business services business, and project managed a major sales function re-organisation project.

For the past five years, and prior to joining Maverick, Caroline has been working as an independent consultant helping a range of businesses to plan, develop and launch new business ventures. Her work has included supporting an academic publisher to develop and launch entirely new online products in the UK educational market.