TED Community » John Kelly

About Me

I have deep knowledge and experience of media business start-ups and turnaround situations on a small scale and at divisional level within large corporate structures. I am highly financially numerate and familiar with all aspects of company operations.

I have extensive knowledge of print and electronic media and hands-on experience at every level of the production process. I have developed advertising and marketing campaigns, including groundbreaking work on The Economist and Business Magazine. I have B2B magazine experience through European Quality and as former publishing director of Reed Business, where I ran Europe’s largest qualified controlled circulation business magazine, International Management. I have B2C experience through Prospect.

I am results-driven, believe in meritocracy, radical empowerment and learning through listening. I can write persuasively and elegantly. I launched and owned six specialist strategic management B2B titles. I have sold significant sponsorship, promotion and advertising packages and have undertaken consulting projects for high-level clients including Harvard Business Review, Strategy and Business and The Economist Intelligence Unit. I managed a significant team and stable of titles at Reed. I have travelled extensively and widely in Europe, the US and Asia and can empathise and understand differing cultures. I helped stage international conferences and am familiar and at ease with business people and cultures outside the UK. I speak competent French and can understand Spanish and German.

EDUCATION
2007 - 2009 Ma History of Ideas, Birkbeck College, University of London
1975-1979 Ba Hons 1st Class, English and American Studies, Univ. of Manchester
1973-1975 Ba Hons Chinese, St. John’s College, University of Oxford1993 –2005 Managing Director, European Quality
I launched European Quality, a high-level strategic management journal focused on TQM and Business Excellence, at the height of the Total Quality Management (TQM). I then launched UK Excellence, Aspects of Excellence, Best Practice and Measuring Business Excellence into the TQM niche. I managed print and circulation, database and logistics for European Business Forum on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers. I helped launch Strategy and Business Magazine in Europe and Asia on behalf of Booz, Allen, Hamilton. I was senior advisor to the European Commission-supported EFQM in Brussels. I have also consulted on database, print, circulation management and logistics for Harvard Business Review and The Economist Intelligence Unit.

1990-1993 Publishing Director, Reed International
I re-launched International Management (IM), a monthly business title, with 108,000 pan European circulation, Airline Business, a high profile B2B magazine and conference business aimed at top airline management, Media International and others. IM was successfully turned around but since Elsevier strategy was inimical to large circulation CC titles, I left Reed to start my own business six months after the Reed-Elsevier merger in 1993.

1985-1990 Deputy Publisher, Marketing Director, Business Magazine
I helped launch the iconic Financial Times/Condé Nast glossy business title, which arguably changed the face of business journalism in Britain and beyond. I built a paid circulation of 49,000 in less than 3 years and helped Business become 1989 Magazine of the Year.

1981-1984 Marketing Manager, The Economist
As its first formal Marketing Manager I was instrumental in repositioning The Economist as a brand, and I acted as a major agent of change. I was responsible for the appointment of Abbot, Mead, Vickers as advertising agency, still incumbent after more than 20 years.

I’m married with three kids and a whippet, live in Highbury, study Aikido and T’ai Chi Chu’an. I like contemporary art, oriental religions, pop music, collect magazines, surf the web and watch art films. I’m studying for an MA in History of Ideas. I’m a fellow of the RSA, member of the CIOJ, on the advisory group of Common Purpose and a member of the Savile Club and One Alfred Place. I’m currently editing a book on paradoxes with the artist Patrick Hughes.