Business Strategy & Transformation – Maverick Publishing Specialists

Martin Marlow

President and Principal

Martin Marlow is the President and Principal of Maverick Publishing Specialists. He oversees the overall organisation, coordinates the Associate teams, and often works as the lead analyst on a number of key assignments. With over 38 years senior management experience in publishing and electronic information, Martin specializes in strategic and operational sales and marketing; product development and management; and publisher/partner relations.

He has delivered and supported a wide range of services including e-journal and e-book aggregation platforms; cross format e-content retrieval systems and numerous online datasets and communities. His customer and market development activities have been deliberately crafted across all main content types, market sectors and steps in the supply chain.

Martin has been a frequent speaker at Industry events in Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific and is a regular reviewer and contributor in the industry press – commenting on sales, marketing and market development strategies, new product innovation and developing industry trends. He was noted as one of 5 “key thought leaders” in the information industry in the UKSG’s Management Handbook, and is frequently consulted to provide his views and opinions on the future of electronic publishing and the industry as a whole.

Prior to launching Maverick, Martin was Vice President of Publisher Business Development + Marketing for Ingram Digital (the digital media arm of the Ingram Content Group) where he was responsible for overseeing the worldwide sales and marketing activities of Ingram Digital solutions to publishers from all sectors, as well as conceiving and directing all their solution and corporate brand marketing. Previous to that, Martin was Vice President for Sales and Marketing for the e-content system development and hosting company, Atypon Systems Inc. Other past positions also include Director of Strategic Marketing for ProQuest Information and Learning, Director of E-Commerce for Blackwell Ltd and Sales and Marketing Director (Academic Division) for SilverPlatter Information.

Rebecca Moakes

CEO

Rebecca is an accomplished senior publishing professional specialising in developing cutting-edge digital resources and delivering B2B and B2C products and services. With over 16 years’ experience working for and with publishers, she offers a combination of strategic, commercial and technical insights to deliver measurable business goals.

She has a proven track record of facilitating collaborative relationships between technical and business teams; informing product development through marketing intelligence and web analytics; and translating business requirements into user stories. As a champion of agile, and UCD, she has engaged extensively with end users through focus groups, interviews and usability testing to ensure a seamless experience which supports the product vision.

During her role at Taylor & Francis, as a Senior Digital Product Manager, she drove forward the digital collections product portfolio, designing and launching new primary archive resources for the global research market. She also implemented key enhancements to the journals platform such as delivering article metrics, automated open access, e-commerce support for ANZ dollars and enabled alternative publishing models.

Prior to this role she worked at Atypon as an Account Manager and Blackwell Publishers as the Electronic Production Editor. In both of these companies Rebecca managed major content migration projects for both books and journals, including transforming 381 journals into a fully XML workflow, and moving content onto new hosting environments. She was instrumental in optimizing content processes, establishing new quality standards, providing extensive technical support and online publishing expertise.

Jayne Marks

Senior Associate, Head of Business Development EMEA

Jayne brings over 40 years of scholarly publishing experience to Maverick. She has worked at senior levels in a variety of companies helping to devise and deliver on business strategies tailored for different markets. Throughout her career Jayne has responded to ever changing market environments by developing new product, sales or content strategies to maximize new opportunities.

Jayne has worked on all aspects of journal publishing focusing particularly on journal development and strategy. More recently her focus has been on helping journals and societies to respond to the new requirements from funders for more open publications linked to data sets. Jayne has worked with a wide variety of society and association partners to help craft publications that meet the needs of their specific markets and members, spanning disciplines from the basic sciences to social sciences and most recently to the unique challenges of clinical medicine.

Starting as a copy editor and proof-reader, Jayne spent a number of years as a managing editor, helping to managing the peer review process. She then moved to Macmillan, where she worked in a variety of roles on journals and books. In the 1990’s Jayne was a director of the newly formed Nature Publishing Group and managed a range of Nature journals in both the UK and US. She then spent three years as the founding director of MPS Technologies – an off shoot of Macmillan Production in India – developing new services to meet the needs of book and journal publishers.

Jayne then moved to the US to work for SAGE Publishing as VP Journals. Here she helped to expand their journal portfolio and introduce open access journals to the group. For the last 10 years, Jayne worked as Vice President for Wolters Kluwer Health Learning, Research and Practice, overseeing a broad portfolio of journals, working with medical society partners and introducing new product options to help diversify traditional revenue streams.

Jayne’s primary focus has been on understanding the needs of the customers and markets that her products serve and ensuring they evolve to meet changing needs.

Nancy Roberts

Senior Associate, Head of Content & Technology Division

Nancy has worked in a variety of production and operations roles across publishing for the last 20 years, following on from the completion of her postgraduate publishing diploma at West Herts College. Her experience encompasses a wide spectrum of sectors, from children’s to trade to academic, culminating in her most recent role as Academic Global Operations Director at Cambridge University Press, during which time she spent time working out of the Hong Kong office and travelling extensively in Asia, Europe and the US. She therefore has a global view of the publishing industry and brings a uniquely broad perspective gained from across the different sectors in which she has worked.

Nancy is passionate about helping businesses to solve problems and deliver sustainable profitability and process efficiency. She specializes in operations strategy and execution; process design and improvement; delivering operational efficiency and profitability; digital workflows; metadata and content enrichment and dissemination; organizational design; supply chain management; outsourcing and offshoring strategies; project management; and knowledge management. She also enjoys providing personal coaching and support to first time managers and leaders. She has a PhD in Postcolonial Feminist Literary Theory and is currently an EMBA student at Cranfield University.

Rebecca Rinehart

Senior Associate

Rebecca is a publishing professional who has over 40 years of experience in all aspects of scientific, technical, and medical publishing—book, journals, periodicals, and online—with emphasis on strategic alignments with societies and associations. She is the former Publisher of American Psychiatric Publishing, a division of the American Psychiatric Association, and the world’s leading publisher of books, journals, periodicals, and online resources on psychiatry, mental health, and behavioral science. In this position, she managed acquisitions and new product development, peer review, marketing, editorial, production, rights, and distribution for print and online products.

Previously Rebecca served as Senior Director and Publisher at The Endocrine Society overseeing the publication of its four scientific journals, three periodicals, books and CME programs, and Endocrine News. In this position she launched a book program and two new periodicals as well as an online news feature.

Rebecca also served as Senior Director of Publications at The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, managing a publishing program of books, periodicals, and consumer literature that included the journal, Obstetrics & Gynecology. Rebecca started her career at Harper & Row Publishers, where she held various production, editorial, and management positions before serving as Senior Medical Editor for acquisitions.

George Farina

Senior Associate (USA)

George Farina has demonstrated his business development and leadership acumen across executive level positions of substantial scope and responsibility both for major global STM publishers as well as distributors. His corporate experience includes senior level sales/marketing and business development positions with iGroup (Asia Pacific) Ltd (marketing and distribution to academic libraries throughout Asia, E-book licensing, US start-up publishing operations and finance support); Joint Commission Resources (healthcare accreditation and patient safety publishing, e-learning and training); Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (clinical medicine/nursing publishing); Thomson International Publishing (university textbooks/professional reference publishing) as well as eight years living in Tokyo and working with Longman/Pearson (ELT publishing).

With a keen understanding of key market and business drivers, George has risen to the level of complete P&L responsibility for business units in excess of $100 million. He is skilled in strategic planning and in developing and executing growth strategies yielding significant increases in revenues and profits.

He has extensive global experience, is well versed in the details of international expansion, distributor networks and global partnering, and is recognized for cost-effective sales expansion into new markets, restructuring and building sales organizations that achieve targets, hands-on development of senior level, high profile customer relationships and excellence in customer service.

Martin Davies

Senior Associate

Martin has over 30 years’ experience of working in the publishing industry. He has worked in a range of sectors including professional, academic, medical, and educational publishing. Before joining Maverick, his latest role was Head of Digital Learning Products at the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) and has previously held e-Learning Director and Publisher roles at Wiley and Editorial Director and Publisher roles at Hodder Education.

Martin has wide-ranging experience from researching and launching e-commerce enabled digital learning platforms, developing textbook programmes for the school, FE and HE sectors in both domestic and international markets as well as the development of professional health sciences book and journal products for global consumption. Additionally, Martin has in-depth knowledge of working collaboratively with membership organisations, digital learning platforms and authoring tools, agile product development, running RFP and tendering exercises and market research projects both in the UK and internationally.

Alison Maclean

Senior Associate

Alison is a publishing operations executive with international experience in concept-to-market editorial and content management in trade, education, reference and professional publishing. She has shaped publishing programs, directed content operations, and marshalled complex project portfolios to deliver significant benefits. Her focus is on bridging from stakeholder priorities to execution, leveraging organizational design, technology solutions and process optimization for scalable results.

Most recently, Alison held the position VP Content Enablement at Wiley. Her brief included defining and executing strategic initiatives to control cost and to make colleagues’ work more meaningful. She led the global team responsible for process design, content technology, editorial standards, accessibility initiatives, data governance, KPI design and reporting, and vendor management. Prior to that, she was a tenured professor and program director of Creative Book Publishing at Humber College (Ontario), guiding graduate students to best practices in book publishing.

With a proven ability to forge successful partnerships, Alison is adept at productive collaboration. Her experience and passion is working with teams to commission, shape and deliver content with clarity and impact.

Amanda Weaver

Senior Associate

Amanda is an experienced, MBA educated, strategically aware senior publishing industry professional. With over 35 years in B2B, STM and Professional Association publishing, before joining Maverick her latest role was Director – Professional Publishing and e-Learning at the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), and previously held both Publisher and Publishing Director positions with Elsevier.

Amanda possesses an excellent track record of growing existing businesses and launching new ones. Her wide-ranging experience includes establishing and overseeing an e-learning academy for the IET; standards and good practice publishing; managing journal and books programmes; launching magazines; and developing conferences. Additionally, Amanda has in-depth expertise in winning society publishing contracts; developing and launching e-products; running RFP and tender exercises; and specifying and implementing new publishing systems.

Emma Thomas

Senior Associate

Emma has worked in a variety of editorial, strategy, production and operations roles in academic publishing for the last 27 years. Her experience includes working at major publishers like OUP, Wiley, Emerald and Springer Nature, as well as managing production and peer review for the British Psychological Society.

She specializes in operations strategy and execution; systems and workflows that support Open Access; organizational change management; process design and improvement; delivering operational efficiency and profitability; digital workflows; project management, and business development (journals editorial). She is a qualified coach, experienced facilitator, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, and ProSci Change Manager.

Kate Wood

Senior Associate

Kate Wood joins Maverick with over 20 years in publishing with experience spanning academic, STM and trade as well as business-to-business magazine publishing. She has held a number of senior roles as a Director of Publicity for Robson Books, followed by positions as Group PR Director and Director of Marketing at Chrysalis Books Group. Kate was an Associate Marketing Director in STM at Wiley, where she led global teams and ran high impact campaigns resulting in product launches generating seven figure revenues, top 10 bestselling titles and high double-digit revenue growth for portfolios across digital STM products. While at Wiley, she was awarded the prestigious Pacesetter award for her work on digital product launch. After leaving Wiley, she was a finalist in the LEAP Entrepreneur of the Year award 2017. With nearly 10 years’ experience in trade and over 10 years’ experience in academic publishing, she is a true publishing all-rounder.

Her wide background in publishing began with publishing research reports in the civil service, moving to Chadwyck-Healey where she worked as an editor on some of the first digital products to go to market, this was followed by 2 years in magazine publishing and by 20 years as a publicity and marketing specialist. The skills Kate brings to Maverick range from marketing strategy and market research, competitor analysis and audits to the nuts and bolts of marketing communications such as campaign management and planning, copywriting, digital and social media marketing, content creation, PR and publicity campaigns and modern marketing methods such as email automation and CRM systems. She has considerable expertise in all sides of product marketing for a wide range of content – books, journals, references and data and workflow tools – and in product launches. At Wiley, she was a marketing specialist in chemistry, molecular life sciences, physical sciences and pharma. Her wide experience of many different parts of the industry allows her to see across discipline and from trade to academic and vice versa.

Kate is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and a fully qualified CIM marketer. She speaks four languages at various levels of fluency.

Lynsey Haire

Senior Associate

Lynsey Haire is a skilled operations leader with almost two decades experience in the publishing industry. An expert in all things peer review, she has deep expertise in manuscript submission, author services, content assessment processing, editor & reviewer engagement programs and procurement of associated technologies and services.

Lynsey headed up peer review systems and services internationally for Taylor & Francis from 2012 to 2023, ultimately as Global Peer Review Director. In this role she led the implementation of online submission systems across the estate as well as roll-out of outsourced journal editorial office services; both programs which required continuous scaling, improvement and iteration to keep pace with a rapidly evolving landscape. She conceptualised, commissioned and scaled key new content assessment capabilities including reviewer selection services, in-house subject matter expert services, roll-out of T&F’s bespoke author-facing Submission Portal and the reviewer recruitment and training program.

A proven process improvement specialist, Lynsey believes strongly in the power of peer review to filter and improve modern scholarship. However, increasing content volumes, fatigued reviewers and bad actors such as papermills put this ~350-year-old trust-based process under significant pressure. With a demonstrated ability to support partners in countering the challenges facing peer review, Lynsey is passionate about harnessing the opportunities and benefits of technology. Her experience and passion is working with teams to optimise journal editorial office efficiency via system change, task sequencing and appropriate automation, whilst supporting staff to keep pace with emerging research integrity best practice.

With close to two decades experience in the field, she is uniquely qualified to support your organisation in balancing the often-competing needs of author customers and volunteer editors to meet your commercial goals.

Rob McPherson

Senior Associate

Rob adds over 30 years of highly-technical experience in the STM / Scholarly publishing and Distribution industries – together with a track record of calm, pragmatic and incisive lateral thinking – to the Maverick team

From his early career in IT Development at Blackwell Science and then Marston Book Services, Rob quickly moved into project management, business analysis and then senior management with Ingenta, before setting up his own consultancy company and subsequently working with United Independent Distributors.

Rob has worked internationally in India, Sri Lanka, China and Australia; relocating to Sri Lanka for a number of years to set up and run an offshore development centre. He is also the author of white papers on prospective market expansion, third-party representation and M&A projects in China and Australia.

His project management experience includes the end-to-end implementation of ERP solutions, warehouse management systems, B2B/BC2 e-commerce systems, data warehouses, third-party logistics integration and inventory transition projects.

A highly experienced business consultant and corporate trouble-shooter, his areas of expertise include: RFP generation, feasibility studies, lost-revenue recovery, cost-saving projects and post-implementation reviews. Rob also has significant product management experience and has created numerous third-party integrations, reseller agreements and associated legal contracts.

Chris Humphrey

Senior Associate

Chris has spent 10 years running operations for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, working on streamlining activities right through the publication process, including management and oversight of an in-house print production environment, a semi-automated pre-press and author liaison system through the use of a bespoke database system, and a warehousing and fulfilment department. As a result of CSP’s initiative to offer production and fulfilment services to other academic and non-academic publishers, he has a wide range of experience with the challenges publishers typically face and enjoys thinking creatively about the best ways to approach them. Having also worked extensively and directly with authors for many years, he also has a solid understanding of the need to balance efficiency and optimisation, with traditional publishing values, and how to present modernisation efforts in a positive way.

Chris is a passionate problem solver, with a particular keenness for data analysis driven decision making and process improvement. He specialises in improving operational efficiency and profitability, organisational design, supply chain management, data analysis, internal technical systems and database development oversight, distribution channel development and streamlining, project management and author liaison/publishing specific challenges (rights, production, legal, etc), and product pricing analysis and strategic review. He studied Chinese at university and has an EMBA (distinction grade) from Durham University. He is currently also learning the programming language python, having worked with it extensively as a manager for many years.

Gary Bowman

Senior Associate

Gary has over 30 years’ experience working in the publishing industry. He originally started his career at Butterworths (now part of Reed Elsevier) and subsequently had a variety of senior management roles including Customer Service Director, Development Director, and Implementation Services Director. Before joining up with Maverick, alongside establishing his own consultancy company, Gary’s his most recent roles were with Vista/Ingenta, where he progressed through various senior positions during his time with the company.

Gary is an accomplished Project & Team Manager, with practical experience of many system implementations across different publishing sectors in both the UK and Europe, as well as North America. He has extensive knowledge of Order Management, WMS, Rights & Royalty, CRM, Product Manager, Production and Permission systems – and he was also directly responsible for leading the team that built and implemented the original, widely used, global PubEasy system over 20 years ago.

Equally happy working as part of a team, or directly managing teams or people, Gary’s significant and wide-ranging knowledge and expertise enables him to provide business consultancy and project management across a variety of areas. These include system implementations and upgrades; business process and operational reviews; business system requirements; definition and design; system integrations; and data migration projects.

Gareth Jarrett

Senior Associate

Gareth brings 28 years of experience working within the print and electronic supply chains of trade and academic publishers, most recently as the Director of Book Publishing Services at Taylor & Francis. A keen believer that the best publishing is for nothing if customers can neither find, access, or use it, he has made it his mission to ensure that books can get to customers when they want it, wherever they want it, in the format they want it, in a manner that is both financially and environmentally sustainable.

With responsibilities in areas including inventory management, procurement, and supplier management (including RFPs) on a global basis, Gareth has led projects including major distributor changes as well as driving broader supply chain transformation, with its supporting process re-engineering, as well as mass backlist digitisation (across print and e-products), and ongoing content and metadata enhancement. He has been involved in business systems selection and implementation and has handled numerous publisher acquisitions, integrations and divestments. With a clear sense of the pressures facing the industry, he is a strong believer in the power of teams working together to forge solutions to those challenges, and of the importance of quick tactical, as well as longer term strategic solutions. He is a Director at Book Industry Communications.

Ruth King, Open Science and Open Access

Affiliate Senior Associate, Open Science and Open Access

Ruth is a publishing professional with deep experience of open science, change management and process development. She has worked in open access publishing since its inception and brings experience from a breadth of business types, from a start-up company using a new business model to global corporate environments.

Ruth has a special interest in in open scholarly infrastructure and how open principles can strengthen research. She has worked closely with the World’s largest professional societies and NGOs to support them to transition to open science. Including open research data strategy, transitioning a journal portfolio to open access, preparing an organization for an open science future, and convening stakeholders from across the research landscape to explore the relationship between open access and the development of research in low- and middle-income countries.

Before becoming a consultant, Ruth was Editorial Director for Springer Nature’s open access journals in Health Sciences, at BioMed Central. A lot of her career has been about looking ahead and enabling change. Ruth has a collaborative and progressive outlook. She brings a great mix of insight, logical thought process and creativity to her work.

Jen O’Shaughnessy-Beal

Senior Associate

With over 17 years in scholarly publishing at Wiley, Jen has a focus on setting up and developing successful communications, engagement, and content marketing programs. She is an audience-focused, enterprising leader with a natural ability for strategic planning, project management, and translating audience and market insights into creative, compelling cross-channel campaigns. Having held leadership positions in Wiley’s PR, Corporate Comms and Marketing, and Editor Engagement teams, she brings experience of internal and external communication and engagement strategy, event management (online and in-person), content marketing strategy, audience and brand perception research, marketing communications, change management, and training development.

Jen set the strategy, researched and negotiated with providers, and project managed the launch of several web platforms covering content marketing sites, press rooms, eLearning, and community hubs. During her time in PR, she designed and led Wiley’s global STM publicity team including personal oversight of the media outreach for The Cochrane Library and many high-profile journal brands achieving significant front-page and broadcast coverage. Jen has a track record of improving the efficiency and enjoyment of teams and improving the effectiveness of outreach. With strong analytical skills and a focus on data-driven decisions, she excels in setting objectives and creating dashboards to measure communication and marketing goals.

Jen has a degree in Broadcast Journalism and a Diploma in Public Relations and is an accredited member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Anna Drage

Senior Associate, Technology and Content

Anna has spent the last 30 years working in the academic and standards publishing industry, specializing in the editorial and production side of electronic publishing. Her broad-based experience of both e-book, e-journal and 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 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. Other workplace 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.

In 2018, Anna’s career focus changed slightly to become a Data Analyst, then a Change Lead, in Editorial Services at the British Standards Institution (BSI). Here, she gained valuable insight into the process of publishing Standards, and working with sponsors and stakeholders to identify improvements in content workflow using Lean management techniques for incremental change to already established processes.

Her current interest is the use of taxonomies/ontologies and AI in the scholarly, academic and standards environment.

Anjali Chadha

Senior Associate

Anjali is a publishing professional with over 23 years of experience spread over academic and scholarly publishing and content development. Before joining Maverick, her latest role was as Publisher and head of publishing program at Wiley India, an Indian subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. She has established credentials in acquiring, developing and delivering content across higher education domains, both in print and digital formats; development and delivery of differentiated versions of global bestsellers for international markets; and design of new product series and innovative learning solutions based on market intelligence and customer requirement. She has been closely involved in the planning and implementation of dynamic publishing strategies for business growth, cost rationalization, improved profitability and smooth operations across business functions.

After completing her PhD in Chemistry from IIT Delhi, she has worked on government fellowships with two of the leading research organizations in India – Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in the area of scientific information and documentation. This built additional expertise for retrieving, interpreting and analyzing scientific information from a range of sources, and its collation and dissemination in specified format; compilation and editing of monographs; and in abstracting and indexing scientific research papers.

John Lavender

Affiliate Senior Associate (USA)

John has over 40 years’ experience in STM publishing, mainly at senior executive level. He lives in the USA having moved from the UK in 2001. His experience of working in both major English language publishing markets and his career covering almost all the major roles in publishing gives him an unrivalled view of the industry.

His corporate experience includes senior vice president of publishing (books and journals), online development, marketing, web development and international sales with Taylor & Francis and director of marketing, international sales and business development and electronic publishing with the Thomson Corporation. John was an early adopter of electronic publishing, creating the first journal to use PDFs to distribute content in 1997 and the first virtual e-book library in 1999.

John specializes in marketing strategy and internet marketing; market research and creating advisory panels; publishing strategy for books and journals; list development; online platforms and packaging of content online; selling online products; and international sales expansion. He has a keen understanding of the financial needs of a business and how to ensure that financial goals are met. He has also had wide experience in the acquisition of both publishing companies and lists, having handled over 20 successful acquisitions during his career. He can assist with any size of acquisition at any or all stages: from planning and developing an acquisition proposal, negotiating the acquisition and valuation, through to integration once acquired.

Gareth Dyke

Senior Associate

Dr Gareth Dyke is a prolific scientific author, researcher, content creator, and journal manager who has published more than 320 peer-reviewed articles over the last 25 years, as well as numerous other pieces (Scientific American) and books. His publications include articles in Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy (USA) and other high-profile outlets. Gareth has worked for more than 18 years as an Editor-in-Chief at the Taylor & Francis journal Historical Biology. He led this journal from zero articles to become one of the leading titles in palaeontology, including its first impact factor (growing each year).

Gareth has a PhD in geology and biology from the University of Bristol, worked as a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and was an Associate Professor at University College Dublin (Ireland) and at the University of Southampton (UK). He is an active teacher and researcher affiliated with universities in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Kazakhstan, and China.

Gareth provides an unique overview of author-facing products and services having worked as a professional editor, as Head of Content at Charlesworth Author Services, as an Education Manager at Edanz and TopEdit, and as Director of Global Content at Research Square Company (fully acquired by Springer Nature in 2022). Gareth is also a Director at Bentham Science Publishers and ReviewerCredits, responsible for academic relationships and business development. He has well developed networks across academia and the scholarly publishing industry.

Gareth brings to Maverick his deep experience at the interface between research and publishing, helping non-native English speakers – especially in China and Central Asia where he has well developed networks – publish their work and understand scholarly publishing processes. Gareth has conducted thousands of online and face-to-face training sessions and is accredited by the UK and Irish Higher Education Authorities.

Will Awad

Affiliate Senior Associate

Will is a digital accessibility expert and experienced publishing professional with a background in the academic publishing, information technology and publishing services industries. He has in-depth expertise of, and advised on, digital accessibility compliance (per W3C/WCAG guidelines) for organisations of many types and market sectors. He has overseen access audits as well as remediation projects for digital documents (i.e., EPUBs and PDFs), ensuring they meet the legal requirements of both the US Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and PDF/UA.

He is recognised as a thought leader in the industry, and has spoken at numerous conferences, industry events, and webinars. These include the Access High Ground conference in Denver USA, addressing the “Certified Accessible eBook ecosystem from vendor to publisher to student”, and the Association of University Presses virtual event in 2023 on “Extending our reach: How making our books accessible makes them equitable”. Will also holds a master’s degree focused on international law.

Marie Hooper

Affiliate Senior Associate

Marie has over 20 years’ experience in academic and professional STM publishing and information analytics as well as non-profit and consulting tenure. During her time at Elsevier, she held international leadership roles across book acquisitions, project management, strategy, and operations. Most recently, as VP of Health Customer Services at Elsevier, Marie drove effective cross-matrix collaboration to implement a SaaS customer experience / customer success model.

Marie’s skills range from: customer experience / success; operations management; strategy planning; project management; change management; process, workflow and organisational analysis and redesign; data driven problem solving; continuous improvement; book acquisitions; coaching, mentoring and team leadership.

A passionate problem solver, self-starter, and “best practice” advocate, Marie has a particular keenness for data driven decision making and process improvement to deliver impact and insight. Via a “can-do”, results driven attitude combined with a collaborative approach, she specialises in improving operational efficiency and embedding a customer experience focus across organisations.

Marie is a driven and impassioned customer-focused consultant available for project level consulting and interim management. She is energised by resolving complex issues and delivering measurable impact to drive profitable service improvement and sustainable customer success.

Julia Brockley

Affiliate Senior Associate

Julia combines content development and list building expertise with partner relationship management skills acquired from over 25 years of experience in academic and scholarly publishing. With creativity, market insight and a flair for anticipating emerging disciplinary trends, Julia has held senior-level publisher/commissioning roles in at a number of companies including, Palgrave Macmillan, (Springer-Nature), Routledge, (Taylor & Francis), Chadwyck Healey, (ProQuest), SAGE Publishing, and Berg Publications, (Bloomsbury Academic).

During her career, Julia has commissioned and managed journals, (including society-owned ones), digital resources and books, spanning all product categories, (textbooks, major reference works, and monographs). She approaches the process of content development with creativity and commercial judgement, and a keen eye to strategic list development. Many of her textbooks are now in their fourth or fifth edition, and a number of her launch journals including New Media & Society, (1999), and The Journal of Visual Culture, (2002), helped define their respective disciplines and continue so to do.

Julia believes passionately in the social value of publishing and is inspired and excited by the pace of change in the industry. In professional terms this translates into the pursuit of a sustainable Open Access model for HSS book publishing.

Julia’s skills span all the content development functions including pre-commissioning research, competitor and market analysis, author/editor selection, advisory panels and peer review, business case development, financial and investment appraisal. In addition, she can offer a board range of team management experience developed both within publishing as well as outside the industry.

Jigisha Patel

Affiliate Senior Associate, Research Integrity Consultant

Formerly a medical doctor and academic, Jigisha has spent the last 13 years in scholarly publishing developing my expertise in research integrity. She led the first Research Integrity Group, a team dedicated to maintaining research integrity standards, at BioMed Central and helped to establish the research integrity group at Springer Nature before becoming an independent research integrity consultant.

Jigisha’s skills range from manuscript handling and decision making through to training, policy formulation, project management, research, writing and strategic thinking.

She uses her experience to create and deliver strategies that help to manage, prevent and detect research and publication misconduct and that adapt as challenges to research integrity change.

Jigisha has a particular expertise in medical research and publication manipulation.

Glyn Porritt

Affiliate Senior Associate

Glyn has over 23 years in digital academic publishing, specialising in project management, Agile Leadership, vendor management and support services. He joined microfilm publisher Adam Matthew Publications in early 2002 as their original online project editor. He delivered their first digital products and was integral in the end-to-end bespoke feature development and data design in their digital transformation to AM Digital and subsequent purchase by Sage Publications in 2012.

Glyn has consistently focussed on using technology to enhance research and discovery, such as database projects encoding reference works and the first integration of HTR (Handwritten Text Recognition) search facility in primary source publishing. During his time at AM, Glyn launched their in-house technical team and as Head of Technical oversaw the creation of federated search tools and Quartex, a groundbreaking SaaS primary source publishing platform.

Glyn has extensive vendor management experience for partners delivering software; cloud and managed hosting; preservation; digitisation; data processing and discovery services. He is an ITIL4 Specialist and has operated within Agile teams since 2008. He is passionate about utilising Lean, Agile, DevOps and ITIL to drive genuine efficiency and continuous improvement, formalise support services and enable support lines to shift left. Glyn has a Masters in Contemporary History from the University of Bristol.

David Pallai

Affiliate Senior Associate

David has been in the publishing industry for over 40 years, with expertise spanning both the scholarly, professional, and textbook sectors. Alongside business transformation and growth strategy development, his expertise also includes content acquisition, editorial management, and digital product development.

With a keen entrepreneurial vision and extensive knowledge of the evolving publishing landscape, David has founded, developed, and successfully sold three publishing companies. He has driven significant growth across multiple organizations, notably in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content.

David was president and founder of Mercury Learning and Information, managing all publishing operations until its acquisition by W. DeGruyter GmbH in 2023. Previously he led Jones and Bartlett Learning’s computer science/math division, achieving revenue increase from $2.7 million to $5.5 million within two years. At Infinity Science Press and Charles River Media, he oversaw title production in engineering, computer science, game development and digital filmmaking, with both companies ultimately being acquired by major industry players.

David’s earlier career saw him hold senior roles at Academic Press and Addison-Wesley, (where he launched the successful AP Professional imprint) and began his publishing career in textbook sales for Prentice Hall.

David has also served as an adjunct instructor at Boston University and Emerson College, holds an MA in English Literature from Yale University and dual degrees (BA and MA) from Boston College. He is a member of MENSA, the ASEE, and was a member of the STM Innovations Committee.

Emilie McDermott

Affiliate Senior Associate

Emilie provides Editorial Management Solutions to Publishers, Editors and Journal owners. She has a broad range of expertise within academic publishing and has managed Book projects as well as academic Journals. She has a wealth of knowledge around Rights and Permissions, advising customers about copyright and attribution. Acting as a Senior Content Editor within an Editorial team, she has expertise in managing Editorial Boards, peer review management and is familiar with systems such as ScholarOne and Editorial Manager.

Within the Production department Emilie managed an overseas team to ensure regular copy flow was maintained for her portfolio and identify any potential issues and provide solutions. Ensuring schedules were adhered to and that journals were typeset to standard were also amongst her responsibilities. Emilie’s main passion lies within publication ethics, having worked as a Research Integrity Manager handling cases of ethical misconduct and conducting investigations in accordance with industry standards. As a Community Advisor for UKRIO, Emilie is constantly developing her knowledge of this area, as it continually challenges academic publishing and the scholarly community.

Emilie has worked at Clarivate as an Editor at Web of Science, conducting evaluations and providing feedback and guidance on journals around best practice and offering Editorial recommendations for Publishers. Emilie offers a multifaceted end-to-end skillset and is familiar with the systems, operating practices and challenges that Publishers and Editorial boards are managing.

Maria Machado, PhD

Affiliate Senior Associate

Maria Machado is a writer, reviewer, analyst, and blogger. Throughout her scientific career, she published on microcirculation and vascular physiology. At Bio-protocol, she edited papers, produced research article templates, and streamlined peer review processes. Now, she specializes in reviewing scientific papers (over 400), FAIR research design, and science communication. She can be regularly seen volunteering in events such as Pint of Science or European Researcher’s Night, attempting to bring scientists and society closer via clear communication (https://stories4sci.blogspot.com/).

Maria hopes to standardize peer review practices through training, and is the co-chair of Peer Review Week 2024. Her passion for multiculturalism and open science is rooted in her experience as a nomadic scientist living and working in many different places. She advocates for transparent practices, equity, and effective training.

Ana Heredia

Affiliate Senior Associate, Latin America

Ana is a former researcher who moved first into STEM editorial and publishing, and more recently into open science infrastructure.

After more than 15 years in research, Ana joined Elsevier as a Research Advisor for Latin America, developing extensive relationships and partnerships within the research community: universities and research institutions, learned societies, government agencies and funding agencies. At Elsevier Brazil, Ana joined the Journal’s Department, managing acquisitions, the daily editorial and production workflow, and acting as a strategic consultant for societies journals in their strategy and indexing challenges. She then worked as a consultant for the Research Intelligence team, providing insights and solutions for research institutions and agencies.

After Elsevier, Anna then changed from commercial publishing to the non-profit space as Regional Director for Latin America for ORCID. here she was responsible for driving the community engagement and membership strategy in the region.

Ana is a Biologist by training, and has a PhD in Science (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and a Msc in Neuroscience (Université Toulouse III), two post-doctorates fellowships and a few papers published on Eco-ethology of ants. She is an active member of SSP – Society for Scholarly Publishing, NISO and C4DISC, and is particularly committed to open research and equity, inclusion and diversity in scholarly communication. She is fluent in English and French, and native in Portuguese and Spanish.

Adam Myers

Affiliate Senior Associate

Adam brings over 15 years of leadership experience in strategic publishing operations, specialising in managing complex change initiatives and delivering large-scale programmes. With expertise in digital transformation, project management, and process optimisation, he excels at leading organisations through transitions while aligning them with long-term strategic goals.

Adam has a strong track record of driving transformational change, including leading the shift from print to digital at Law Business Research. By redefining workflows, integrating new systems, and restructuring teams, he successfully guided the business through this strategic transformation.

Throughout his career, Adam has consistently driven business growth through operational excellence. His strategic mindset, combined with a deep understanding of process optimisation, has delivered impactful results. Whether overseeing large-scale projects, implementing digital-first initiatives, or managing cross-functional teams, Adam’s experience and insights are key to helping organisations navigate their next phase of growth and innovation.

Bryan Davies

Affiliate Senior Associate

Bryan is a seasoned Senior Product, Program, Transformation and people leader with deep ‘hands on’ experience in innovation and technology, from the military as an engineering leader, to online SaaS information product and service delivery through global, matrixed, cross-functional stakeholders.

He has successfully led large strategic change programs in various roles (product, program, operational, editorial, general management, senior management) in his 23 years at Elsevier to deliver improved customer and business outcomes by focusing on customer needs, innovation, coaching, and creating ‘psychologically safe’ organisational cultures to drive engagement, alignment, and cross-functional collaboration – at all levels of the organisation and at every stage of the program lifecycle.

Bryan brings an integrated and pragmatic, ‘system level’, data-driven and agile approach to strategy, planning, problem-solving – and technical, process, and commercial execution. As well as leading Elsevier’s online books program by transforming a print-based, transactional, books business into a $60M+ online reference business, he has delivered turnaround performance leading Elsevier’s Engineering information business as General Manager, to deliver two years of market-beating growth following 10 previous years of flat growth in a low-growth market by challenging and changing perceptions about customer value creation and focusing on operational effectiveness, Go-to-Market (GTM) execution and high-growth new use cases, digital innovation, and adjacent market opportunities. Bryan also significantly improved the team’s employee satisfaction scores over the same period.

Bryan is a passionate people leader with an authentic, transparent, collaborative, style who builds inclusive and engaging environments for individuals and teams to test, learn, grow, and deliver successful outcomes.

Karen McKeown

Affiliate Senior Associate

Karen is passionate about helping B2B SaaS and Cloud companies unlock their growth potential, bringing fresh perspectives shaped by launching over 50 products across technology, learning, and research markets. Karen’s a veteran of many different roles in companies that focus on education, learning, and research – introducing services such as the hosting of Archives at JSTOR, leading usage-impacting integrations and design improvements at Gale/Cengage, conceptualizing and launching new research databases at ProQuest, and helping to launch OCLC’s Worldshare service.

Whether crafting compelling positioning, developing go-to-market strategies, advising on product roadmaps and launches, or creating high-impact marketing programs, she enjoys rolling up her sleeves to help teams achieve measurable results.

Her approach combines strategic thinking with hands-on execution – you might find her running a positioning workshop one day and creating interactive product demos or a sales pitch deck the next. She’s particularly energized by pioneering new approaches to solve problems or market challenges, whether that’s streamlining go-to-market processes or leveraging AI tools to enhance market research and content creation.

Having led product marketing initiatives at companies such as Skillsoft (Corporate e-learning), Macmillan Learning (Higher Ed e-learning) ITHAKA (JSTOR, ARTSTOR, PORTICO), Gale/Cengage, OCLC, and ProQuest/Clarivate – she understands the unique challenges of complex solutions and rapidly changing markets. She brings a depth of experience to her consulting work, helping teams quickly identify opportunities and implement practical solutions that drive growth.

Steve O’Connor

Affiliate Senior Associate

Steve is a seasoned international speaker, workshop presenter, editor, writer, consultant, and, of course, librarian. He wrote the book on scenario planning for libraries and other information organizations (“Imagining Your Library’s Future” [Chandos], which has also been published in the Chinese language by the National Library of China). He has also written “Library Management in Disruptive Times [published by Facet] and “Repositories for Print: Strategies for Access, Preservation and Democracy” [De Gruyter]. Steve is a long-standing journal editor (Library Management) and the author of over 70 articles. He is also a frequent presenter at international conferences and workshops and taught at Chiang Mai University.

Most recently, he has been engaged developing on a Masters for Information Leadership at Charles Sturt University where he is an Adjunct Professor. Steve’s passion is to foster creative and dynamic imaginative communities, that deliver positive and measurable results for their Library’s customers. His key strength is understanding that there are many paths to the Future, thus allowing us to pause, reflect, and to really think differently rather than have our futures determined for us.

Mark Berthelemy

Affiliate Senior Associate

Mark Berthelemy is an experienced consultant working at the intersection of business, learning and technology – helping translate between technical and non-technical audiences.

With his deep knowledge of digital media and a solid understanding of the technologies underpinning modern online learning and content management systems, he is able to help organisations to review their existing provision and design and procure new solutions.

Mark has worked within large and small corporations, in public sector bodies and in international non-governmental organisations. He is able to work and communicate at all organisational levels – facilitating change and offering hands-on support where necessary.

Angela Keil-Zippermayr

Affiliate Associate, SEO, ONIX & Metadata

Angela boasts an extensive professional background as the Head of Publisher and Supplier Data for Australia’s largest book retailer: Booktopia, where she has excelled in this role for over 13 years. In her capacity overseeing importer systems, managing diverse inbound data feeds, and ensuring the quality and strategic alignment of product data presented on the retailer’s platform, Angela has concurrently served as a consultant for trade and academic publishers and wholesalers. Her expertise spans all facets of print, e-book and audiobook bibliographic data, along with addressing ONIX feeds-related challenges.

Committed to remaining informed about industry developments, Angela remains current with ONIX updates, BIC, THEMA, and BISAC classification schemas. She maintains active communication channels with key industry players such as Editeur and collaborates with renowned book data aggregators like Nielsen, Titlepage and Thorpe-Bowker, facilitating a continuous exchange of ideas and insights.

Before assuming her role as a data quality specialist in the book industry, Angela contributed her skills as an SEO and SEM consultant across diverse sectors, ranging from online learning course providers to rental car companies. Armed with a profound understanding of the pivotal role that targeted keywords and strategic data placement play in the ecommerce landscape, Angela seamlessly integrates her SEO and SEM mindset into her overarching data and business strategies, ensuring a comprehensive and cohesive approach to her work.

Jo Havemann

Affiliate Associate, Global Research & Publishing Equity

Dr. Johanna Havemann (commonly referred to as ‘Jo’) brings enthusiasm for new ideas, projects, and viewpoints to the Mavericks team. Her aspiration is to share the tools, strategies and workflows developed over years, encouraging scholarly publishing with a global perspective in dedicated service for the dissemination of research accomplishments to enable their unfolding to societal and environmental benefits.

Jo is a certified trainer recognized by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce with over a decade of experience in Open Science Communication. Her biological research background culminated in a PhD in Molecular Biology specialized in Evolution and Developmental Research (EvoDevo).

Driven by a passion for Open Science, Jo embarked on a journey with Access 2 Perspectives to alleviate the challenges faced by researchers and to facilitate enjoyable research practices, alleviate publication pressures, and dispel myths surrounding Open Science and Open Access. This commitment stems from personal experiences during her PhD journey, and the realization that research practices should be purpose-oriented, fostering collaboration on a global scale.

Grounded in values such as transparency, accountability, cooperation, and diversity, Jo’s expertise lies in Open Science; Scholarly Reading, Writing and Publishing; Research Integrity; and Global Research Equity. At Access 2 Perspectives, Jo collaborates with institution-independent consultants to provide comprehensive comparisons of scholarly services by both commercial and non-commercial providers, enabling researchers, librarians and publishers across disciplines to streamline their digital workflows efficiently.

A notable achievement for Jo is her work with AfricArXiv – the African Open Access portal, leveraging the discoverability of African research primarily through the adoption of Persistent Identifiers.

Dedicated to life-long learning, Jo currently engages in brainstorming and sharing of best practices as a member of the OpenAIRE Training Coordinators – Community of Practice, the Subscribe to Open (S2O) Community of Practice, and the SDG Publishers Compact Fellows.

Katharine Szamuely

Affiliate Senior Associate

Katharine is a senior finance business partner and CIMA qualified accountant with 20 years’ experience providing commercial financial support and working with Board-level management in academic publishing, financial information services and media. Most recently she spent 10 years at Springer Nature covering institutional subscriptions, open access, trade sales and eCommerce across journals, books, databases and author services. She has developed strong skills in modelling, analysis, planning and communicating, comfortably moving from detailed financials to broader management and strategy.

Her area of particular focus is open access publishing, including fully open access journals, Transformative Agreements and hybrid journals, and strategic planning for the transition to open access. Her work on fully open access journals has included enhancing understanding of the growth drivers of open access journals, improving forecasting and decision making, developing criteria for starting and developing journals, improving pipeline management for large journals and portfolios, and supporting Managing Directors in P&L management of these high growth businesses.

Her work on Transformative Agreements began in Europe with the first agreements over 8 years ago. This has included many deals, moving from Europe to the US, Asia and the rest of the world, e.g. analysing publication patterns, developing the ongoing methodology to support sales pitches, reporting to existing customers, providing financial and strategic guidance for new deals and renewals. It has also included strategic analysis, e.g. financial modelling of the long-term impact of the growth of Transformative Agreements and of Plan S proposals and evaluating scenarios and developing new business models for the ongoing transition to open access.

Stefan Kendzierskyj

Affiliate Senior Associate

Stefan Kendzierskyj has an extensive background in commercial, consulting, and strategic leadership, holding senior and executive-level positions with technology solution-led companies servicing the publishing, fintech, government, and cybersecurity sectors.

After working a number of years as senior business development in financial accountancy software and database systems industries, he moved into the publishing sector. There he managed government clients and grew new business as a risk publisher for The Stationery Office (part of Williams Lea), leading high-profile projects for the Home Office, Foreign Office, MoD, and large bid tenders. He deployed a number of successful digital initiatives at TSO. Subsequently, Stefan moved to the software vendor side of the industry as Executive Vice President for Sales with the digital transformation company, Impelsys Inc. Over the next 10 years, he built and managed the EMEA/APAC regional sales team, executing P&L, forecasting and budget, responsibilities alongside achieving high revenue growth, extensive regional development, and winning/implementing multi-million Euro digital transformation deals.

Post Impelsys, Stefan has undertaken publishing and Web3 projects including iGaming, blockchain, and cybersecurity – and led (as a senior consultant) many publishing discovery phases, market research/analysis, and strategic selling initiatives.

He holds a master’s degree in Cybersecurity and is an accomplished author in emerging technology subjects, such as blockchain, self-sovereign identity, AI, cyber warfare, and cyberattacks/threats – with published works through Springer, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, IGI, and World Scientific.

Jason De Boer

Affiliate Senior Associate

With 30 years’ experience in a diverse range of roles and sectors within publishing and information services, Jason works with clients to support their business growth, strategy delivery, customer outreach and product development.

During his career, Jason has held senior commercial and client-facing business development roles with Kriyadocs, Aries Systems, Elsevier, The Charlesworth Group, OCLC, Thomson Learning (now Cengage) and the British Standards Institution (BSI). In these roles, he has worked with a broad range of institutional and corporate customers. In recent years, Jason has helped publishers to optimise their editorial and production processes, focussing on technology and services to improve author experience, support peer review, implement XML-first workflows, and integrating AI tools to support editorial decision making. He is also a CIPD qualified trainer, with experience of recruiting, leading and coaching sales teams.

Since late 2020 Jason has been living in the rural tranquillity of the Creuse region of France.

Lisa McCarthy

Affiliate Senior Associate

Lisa consults across transformation, strategy, sales enablement, and training. She has 20+ years of experience successfully leading end-to-end business transformation programmes and operational improvements in Academic publishing from ideation to cultural integration, utilising coaching, training and leadership practices to steer teams towards shared goals and outcomes. She has also worked on technology enabling change, strategic planning, facilitating culture shifts, sustainable change adoption and process design.

Lisa has extensive expertise in sales enablement and training and feels passionate about creating the best possible environment for sales teams to thrive in a digital selling landscape. She specialises in driving real behavioural change across regional and global teams, with a strong track record of leading global cross-cultural teams across diverse operational levels and functions.

Michael Ross

Affiliate Senior Associate

Michael Ross is the President/Founder of Ross & Associates LLC, an educational publishing and technology consultancy. R&A’s clients are based in the U.S., U.K., the Middle East, and Asia, and comprise nonprofits, private equity firms, publishers, content developers, universities, marketers, and corporations.

Before establishing Ross & Associates in 2017, Michael was the SVP and Education GM at Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., where he led the sales and marketing activities in North America and EMEA and ran the product development and technology teams. He led the expansion of the company’s institutional products and databases in the K-12 and higher education channels. Prior to joining Britannica in 2002, he was the EVP and Publisher of World Book, Inc. and previously held executive positions at other global publishing companies. He began his career as an editor for Time-Life Books, including three years in Tokyo.

Michael’s products and publications have had worldwide circulation, have generated substantial revenue over decades, and have won the highest industry awards, including: The Distinguished Achievement and the Golden Lamp Awards from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP/AAP), and the Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) prestigious Codie Award.

Michael has written and spoken extensively on digital publishing and educational technology. In addition to articles in textbooks, journals, and blog posts, he has authored three books, most recently Dealing with Disruption: Lessons from the Publishing Industry (2016, Routledge). He has been a keynote speaker at global conferences such as: The Licensing Executive Society; the Hammond Organization; Book Expo America; BookTech; The London Book Fair; SIIA; the Shanghai Book Fair; and the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Michael was inducted into the PrintMedia Production Executives’ Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Association of Educational Publishers’ Hall of Fame in 2009. He has served on several boards, including the Board of Directors of the Association of Educational Publishers, and one year as president.

Michael holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota; an M.A. from Brandeis University; and a certificate from Stanford University’s Advanced Management College.

Jason Cooper

Affiliate Senior Associate

Jason is a highly regarded, cross-functional consultant with over 20 years’ experience in all aspects of publishing. He has conceived of and led several innovative D2C ventures from ideas to thriving operations in corporate and entrepreneurial settings. As a result, he has a particular specialism in opportunity based commercial analysis and the financial modelling, operational design, strategic marketing and growth of new businesses. He was also for a time an IP development and licensing sales specialist, working across all media and global markets.

As Chief Operating and Commercial Officer of innovative publishing start-up Unbound, he provided the practical strategy and support to grow an early-stage concept into an award-winning team able to raise several million in investment and deliver a profitable business model. This involved the hands-on leadership of the finance, marketing, editorial, HR, product development, editorial, sales, marketing, production and distribution functions. He has been identified with a period of growth and innovation at the literary publishing house, Faber and Faber, where, as Digital and New Business Director, he contributed substantially to record results through the development of several award-winning digital products, new D2C services, strategic partnerships and through the growth of their licensing activities. This is where he first became involved in Academic publishing, working with Bloomsbury to build Drama Onlineand scoping Faber’s own entry into this sector. During this time he also secured an executive MBA with merit at Warwick Business School, where he focused on publishing and media strategy and practice.

Prior to this, Jason was a senior commissioning editor at Pan Macmillan where he published non-fiction and fiction for the Macmillan and Picador imprints. His list included several New York Times bestsellers and included the first book published on Google, trade works by respected academics, pop-culture and ground-breaking literary fiction. “Jason worked with us at Bonnier Books UK as a consultant on our digital business strategy. Throughout the process, he was an invaluable advisor and trusted member of our team. During each stage of the project, Jason collaborating in unison with our team, whilst demonstrating his meticulous approach to research and data-gathering. The reporting he delivered was brilliant – clear and articulate – and an invaluable resource for us as a business as we look forwards to our next stage of growth.” – Perminder Mann, CEO Bonnier UK, 2020

Peter Harden

Affiliate Senior Associate

Peter is a multi-talented publishing professional who has over 30 years of experience in educational and trade publishing.

For the last ten years, Peter served as the Managing Director of York Press, known in the UK for its leading series of Study Guides for GCSE and A Level; and internationally for a number of school courses in ELT, Maths & Science for MENA Ministries of Education. From 2018, in partnership with Pearson, Peter sat on the management board of Project Sphinx in Egypt: Pearson’s largest single online assessment project. Peter also managed the development of York-E: a school-focused LMS now installed in hundreds of Egyptian schools.

Founded in 1991, Peter’s original publishing project – Harden’s – was one of the first UK businesses to use the collation of User Generated Content to source content and remains a leading brand amongst UK restaurant guides today. Over its thirty years in operation, it has had marketing partnerships with many top consumer brands – Rémy Martin, Champagne Mumm, Spa Natural Mineral Water – and content partnerships with media brands such as The Sunday Times, The Observer and the Evening Standard. The business has evolved in recent times to incorporate an innovative subscription-driven loyalty scheme.

The skills Peter brings to Maverick from positions in senior management to early-stage start-up range from strategic consultancy and financial modelling to the nitty gritty of project management, digital development and print production to the nuts and bolts of marketing, PR and social media management

Giles Grant

Affiliate Senior Associate

Giles brings over 34 years’ experience in the global information industry, with extensive knowledge of driving transformational strategic change across B2B, B2C, STM, and Learned Societies in the Information, SaaS, and Solution sectors. Giles is passionate about the transformative impact of data, content and AI, with over 25 years’ experience of digitizing businesses and leveraging technology for strategic advantage as well as internal efficiencies across multiple businesses.

Formerly the Executive Director of the IET’s Knowledge Services & Solutions, he transformed the business, from initiating the largest journal flip to Open Access in partnership with Wiley, to an award-winning entry into the analytics and intelligence market.

His previous roles include VP Global Marketing for the Nature Research Unit at Springer Nature, reshaping marketing to become digitally driven and attribution focused; SVP for Pearson’s £200M English Language Teaching business, building and delivering eLearning and Assessment solutions & services to learners (primary, secondary/K12 and tertiary) and English language teachers globally- and VP of Strategy & Corporate Development at Thomson Reuters, where he drove corporate development, business unit management and expansion globally across both the Legal, and the Tax & Accounting Divisions.

Earlier in his career Giles was, Group Managing Director for Digital Strategy & Development, and Managing Director for the Interactive Marketing Division at Incisive Media. He also spent six years, as Managing Director at BSI, creating the Information business (centered on standards), part of an innovative digital/online joint venture with HIS (tripling the business globally over 5 years). He began his career at Reed Elsevier, holding senior general management positions in the UK, Americas and Asia Pacific.

Giles’ key skills include transformational growth, business turnarounds (from strategy creation and implementation development & corporate development) to digitisation via both organic growth, partnerships, and acquisitions. Over his career he has either led or been part of over 40+ M&A transactions with end-to-end oversight from strategic identification to investment and integration. He is also skilled in establishing global strategic partnerships, including JVs and outsourcing agreements across software, workflow solutions, and consultancy providers such as Deloitte, EY, Wiley, Clarivate, and Reed Elsevier.

Giles has been for many years part of the Outsell Executive Leadership Council. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Marketing and has an MBA from Bradford University Business School & NIMBAS/Utrecht.

Jemma Macfadyen

Affiliate Senior Associate

Jemma has 22 years’ business management and product development experience in the B2B online information industry through senior management roles at Thomson Reuters, Gartner and LexisNexis UK and more recently, through strategic and consulting engagements for large online information and software vendors. Jemma founded Spinnaker Consulting in 2008, a small, successful and well-networked consultancy.

At Thomson Reuters, Jemma was responsible for a range of online, software and advisory services including Consult GEE, online information subscription services for the UK regulatory market. Jemma delivered a completed online product overhaul including usability testing, detailed market research and an accessibility audit. Previous to Thomson Reuters Jemma was at LexisNexis, managing and delivering a range of editorial projects then later heading up the development of online products and services. In addition, Jemma has experience of successfully setting up and delivering strategic partnerships and revenue generating initiatives.

Jemma specialises at the customer and markets end of qualitative research, delivering insight for market planning, segmentation, growth strategies, go-to-market tactics, new online product development and competitive intelligence. She excels at getting to grips with projects and markets quickly and in not just delivering PowerPoint but real, executable outcomes that drive commercial results for clients. Jemma has a first class degree and a scholarship from the University of Manchester.

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