Clients

Client recommendations

Carolyn Morgan has advised media organisations on how to grow their business for 20 years – here are some recommendations from senior people she has worked with, and clients of Speciall Media.

Carolyn joined our Board in 2018. She has been a very active and engaged member of the Board and can be relied upon to ask insightful questions to probe our thinking. Carolyn put her chairing skills to good use recently leading the Board's annual strategy day, doing a great job of keeping us on track and focussed on the big picture. She has supported the management team in refining their divisional strategies and has facilitated numerous helpful introductions to experts from her extensive network
Chris Gibson
MD, Thomas Telford
I know Carolyn in our capacity as NEDs for Thomas Telford Ltd. As the Chair of the Board, I was pleased to welcome her onto the Board in order to bring her particular skills to help the management team as they think through their future strategy. Even before the Covid 19 crisis, her capability and knowledge and ability to be a critical friend to the business were making a real difference. Over the last few months, she has been a great support as the management think and manage their way through a very difficult period. Carolyn has quickly become regarded as a senior member of the Board and this will certainly result in her ability to progress in her NED career.
Andrew McNaughton
Chair, Thomas Telford
Following the MBO of International Boat Industry (IBI) from Time Inc in 2017 Carolyn assisted us in developing a successful digital strategy. While part of Time the title had lost its direction and its digital offering was poorly executed. With Carolyn’s initial input we reformulated our approach leading to a substantial growth in online revenues which combined with a doubling of print revenues led to the successful sale of the business in late 2021.
Nick Hopkinson
Publisher Emeritus, Boating Communications Ltd
Carolyn has provided a great sounding board for me as we transition our business from legacy B2B publisher to a multi-channel B2B data and intelligence-led content business. She has been exceptionally generous with her knowledge, experience and connections and I value her advice immensely.
Gavin Miller
MD, Ultima Media
Carolyn ran a recent strategic project for one of our commercial B2B media divisions. Carolyn diagnosed issues in existing products, encouraged the team to analyse customers in new ways, instigated a portfolio review and identified new opportunities. She built strong working relationships with the senior team and brought clarity to the strategy.
Giles Grant
Publishing Director, IET
Carolyn has been a fantastic sounding board for us, providing external perspective which would have been very hard to us to acquire without her. As a B2B publisher we are in a niche market and found Carolyn's experience of the products and trends in our sector has really helped us develop our strategy in a challenging and competitive marketplace. Apart from that she is a joy to work with and goes above and beyond what you would expect an NED to do, not only does she support the Directors but is equally happy to help our employees. We are a data driven company and Carolyn loves her numbers, so she’s a perfect match for us.
Helen Fish
CEO, Executive Grapevine
I was a colleague of Carolyn’s on University of Nottingham Council. Carolyn has a unique ability to take granular data and interrogate it objectively, applying intellect, experience, and common sense to shape and inform decisions. She has the ability to challenge constructively, often highlighting different perspectives on solutions and proactively seeks out research and evidence to support this. Very much a trusted adviser and I have personally found her counsel extremely valuable. Very open and collaborative.
Nora Senior CBE
Vice-Chair, Council, University of Nottingham
Carolyn has recently delivered 2 separate training courses for us at Euromoney Asia. These sessions were well researched and expertly delivered by Carolyn. Despite these sessions being delivered virtually, Carolyn was able to make them engaging and enjoyable experiences. Most crucially, I feel, Carolyn taught us how to think rather than what to think. This distinction will enable us to develop our own ideas going forward whilst using the framework Carolyn provided.
Stephen Hathaway
MD, Euromoney Asia
Carolyn was my business mentor for 7-8 months during 2020 focusing on B2B publishing and digital media. Carolyn has a wealth of expertise in this area which meant I was quickly able to learn from her about the latest trends, future predictions and real-life instances of the exact challenges I was facing as someone going into B2B publishing for the first time (all my experience was in Consumer). Carolyn would bring relevant examples to ensure each topic was covered in depth and then afterwards would continue to share her knowledge and connections. I always left each session highly motivated having learnt things that I could immediately apply so can highly recommend Carolyn.
Sue Holt
Publishing Director, ITP Media
Carolyn was our dedicated mentor on the Collingwood Crescent Programme. She was committed to helping us through the challenges of this year and gave us some excellent frameworks for our business model and value proposition. Carolyn went above and beyond in terms of how she was expected to help us and we are so grateful. She played a pivotal role in getting us through 2020!
Serena Guen
CEO, Suitcase Media

“Carolyn is an extremely knowledgable and focused individual and has helped fast track our online presence for our publishing business. When we hired Carolyn we were very uncertain about how to proceed with digital ventures and here we are 10 months later ready to launch multiple professional websites and mobile apps. If it’s logical, strategic and commercial advice about digital opportunities for your business you require look no further.”

Danny Bowler, MD Practical Publishing

“Carolyn was invited by FIPP- the worldwide magazine media association, to assist in developing our digital marketing strategy. She immediately got to grips with the brief, and quickly understood our audience and needs. She is professional, conscientious, and delivered work to a very high standard. Her knowledge of the industry is excellent, and she has been fundamental in helping us to move forward and plan for the future.”

Chris Llewellyn, President FIPP

“Carolyn was a pleasure to work with. Full of bright ideas and how to implement them, she was a breath of fresh air who enthused us all. Her professionalism and experience were apparent from the start and she has helped us to implement an on-going marketing strategy. I am very happy to recommend Carolyn and look forward to working with her again.”

Belinda Don

CEO of NewsBase. What, Why and What Next in the global energy industry

 

“Carolyn ran a strategy workshop with our publishing team in advance of relaunching our site, and provided excellent guidance on how we prioritised the content, how we commercialised it, and how we should implement the relaunch. I’d be keen to work with her again”

Andy Rice 

Publisher of Photography magazines, Archant Specialist

“Carolyn worked as interim Product Manager for the IET on our Electrical Standards Plus digital workflow product. This was as the product was launched and Carolyn pulled together all the issues which needed resolving, prioritised for further development sprints and worked with our user group. In a challenging post-launch period she provided the direction to ensure problems were rectified and lessons learnt”.

Amanda Weaver

Publishing Director, IET

 

“Carolyn was asked to run several workshops to support and motivate our editorial and production staff moving into multimedia and digital first content types and workflows. Carolyn was very thorough and knowledgeable in her preparation of the agenda, the presentation and the exercises. Her energy and hard work made the day productive and enjoyable and staff greatly benefited from her input. Carolyn is extremely professional and a great facilitator, and RCNi would certainly be happy to work with her on other projects.”

Helen Sumner

Head of Product Development, RCNi

 

 

“Carolyn and her colleague were hired by the IFABC to lead a project defining the future road map towards a thriving audit bureau in 2015. The project was a great success and warmly received by the IFABC member bodies; Carolyn defined the work plan, carried out detailed and extensive industry research, identified leading-edge thinkers in the field to interview and presented the conclusions and action plan in a compelling and cogent manner, producing a well-argued and coherent final implementation programme.”

Jerry Wright

CEO of ABC UK and President of IFABC

 

“Carolyn is a superb partner to work with, professional, knowledgeable, and not easily fazed! She has moderated channels at two international FIPP events, FIPP London in 2016 and our flagship event, the FIPP World Congress in 2017, doing an exceptional job in each circumstance. Carolyn’s ‘gets’ what media is about today, and this translates into the superb work she does on stage. I highly recommend her.”

Cobus Heyl 

Chief Content Officer, FIPP

“Carolyn has produced some very good work for us this year. She is well organised, quickly gets to grips with her brief and delivers work on time to a high standard and to deadline. She works well with in-house teams providing an objective external perspective as well as practical hands-on analysis.”

Stella Beaumont

Strategy Director, Guardian News and Media

 

 

“Carolyn has outstanding expertise in various aspects of running a successful media business. Her research and writing skills have made an excellent contribution to MPG’s own content and our clients’ requirements over the past few years. I recommend Carolyn as a pragmatic, efficient, flexible person to work with. She has always exceeded our expectations!”

Helen Coetzee

MD, Marketing Pro Group

“Carolyn worked with the ABC senior team to refine and communicate their Digital Strategy, creating a presentation to the ABC Board which was approved.  Carolyn has a broad understanding of strategic issues fom the publisher perspective across the media industry, and an impressive ability to identify key trends and communicate succinctly how ABC can evolve.  I’ve asked her to help on other projects since and have always been impressed with her professionalism and strategic thinking.”

Richard Foan

Director, ABC

 

“The digital strategy workshop Carolyn designed for our publishers was informative, engaging and and enjoyable. Best of all, it provided lots of practical ideas that could be adapted and implemented. Carolyn worked hard to ensure that the programme met the  different needs of the group and provided follow-up material. It was a very valuable session indeed!”

Lucy Thomas

Welsh Books Council

Colleagues and business partners

“Carolyn is shrewd, thoughtful, resourceful, reliable and very productive: which is why she is the first person I turn to when I need another brain to work on a strategic project.”

Tim Brooks 

Media NED, formerly CEO, British Medical Journal Group, MD at The Guardian

 

“Carolyn has an incisive brain and an energetic personality and was one of the key members of the team that built Emap Consumer Magazines into a major force in the publishing industry”

David Arculus

Media NED and former Group Managing Director of Emap plc

“Carolyn’s greatest strength is her ability to distill information into a clear strategy and then bring people together to make things happen. Her analytical thinking is top notch. And she can build and lead project teams with a high degree of both efficiency and effectiveness, keeping top of mind the activities that will drive growth. I worked with Carolyn on a number of projects at Bauer and her passion, energy and focus were always outstanding”.

Nick Bradley

Marketing and Strategy Director, Bauer

Carolyn is amazing! Not only does she know everyone in the publishing and media industry in the U.K., she understands how the ecosystem of the industry works – and who is driving innovation. She has great stage presence, and is also a terrific interviewer!”

Ken Wasch

President, SIIA

“Carolyn is one of those strategic thinkers who can evaluate the big picture, quickly break it down to the important insights and then make those easy for teams to understand and take action on. She always has something valuable to add to a debate at a strategic or tactical level even if that’s not always something that everyone agrees with. She is incredibly hard working, focussed on results and always keen to listen to and help solve a tricky problem.”

Paul Sloggett

Marketing Director, Emap Automotive

“I worked closely with Carolyn Morgan for 8 years. She was part of the executive team which turned around a mid-size magazine publishing business and doubled its size in five years. She excelled at providing strategic focus which influenced everyday action. She successfully sold and acquired magazines and events over this period and became a convert to the potential for digital delivery of content, an insight that was to shape her later career. Carolyn is insightful, practical, hugely industrious and was a thought-leader during our time working together.” Ian Templeton  Group Managing Director Emap Consumer Media

“Carolyn understands the dynamics of specialist communities and publishing markets.  She has an ability to spot new business opportunities and the persistence to bring them to fruition”

Robin Miller

former Chief Executive of Emap plc

“Carolyn has been highly professional and consistently demonstrated her expertise in the project area throughout the time we have worked together. I look forward to working with her on future projects.”

David Alliston 

MD, AASM Ltd

“I have worked with Carolyn on a couple of projects and have found her to be professional, knowledgeable and very results-oriented. Her knowledge of the publishing industry and in particular digital media are excellent. I look forward to working with Carolyn again in the near future.”

Mark Judd 

Commercial Director CDS Global

“Today traditional specialist media faces opportunity and threats in equal measure. Never before has the industry needed to adapt, experiment and change so quickly to meet the challenges of a dramatically different marketplace. Such change always needs trusted brokers and catalysts to drive innovation from a position of deep understanding of a sector’s history and future opportunity. Carolyn Morgan is an important broker and catalyst for the specialist media industry and will play a key role in its evolution.”

Miles Galliford

Co-founder, joint CEO, Subhub

Independent publisher clients

“Having discovered Carolyn via articles she had written in the B2B specialist media and subsequently her website, we hired Carolyn to come and navigate us through the tricky terrain of digital vs print subscription packages, pricing and benefits – in a sector which is notoriously cash-strapped and suffering indirectly through government austerity measures. Not only does Carolyn have exceptional knowledge and expertise in the publishing sector, but she skilfully helped us through some strongly held, but differing internal management perspectives on paid-for-versus-free content, ultimately resulting in a unified strategy which we are now implementing. As the owners of a small business, employing consultants is a rare gesture for us, but in this case we believe we had urgent need and in Carolyn, we found the perfect partner and mentor.”

Brian Whitehead

Director, Arts Professional

“At Fish & Fly our websites are growing very strongly but with the rapidly changing digital world we felt we needed some specialist advice.  We appointed Carolyn to focus on monetisation especially with regard to subscriptions/ pay walls and found her input invaluable.  She has the expertise and contacts to make a difference and also brings clarity to what is often a very confusing subject.  The team here enjoyed the workshops run by Carolyn and we now have a much better understanding of the options available to us.”

Richard Hewitt

Chairman, Fish & Fly

“Carolyn Morgan has provided invaluable expert guidance and support in helping The Artists’ Publishing Company Ltd to develop its future digital publishing strategy. Carolyn has been inspirational, informative and a pleasure to work with throughout.”

Dr Sally Bulgin 

MD, TAPC

“We asked Carolyn to help us map out the future of local media and its implications for our business. She was succinct, insightful and focused on what we could do differently. A wake-up call and a catalyst.”

Nicholas Rudd-Jones

 Publisher, Local Living

Non-media client recommendations

“Carolyn worked with me to re-focus our marketing strategy on our key customer targets. She helped us redesign our website to make it easier for customers to find our website, find out about us and buy our award-winning Mentor Training DVD. She is efficient and reliable and delivers what she promises. I would recommend her to others wanting a marketing strategy that yields tangible results.”

Richard Naish MD Qi Concepts Ltd

“Carolyn’s workshop to help us understand how to harness the power of social media was excellent. Engaging from start to finish, she guided us through the what, the how and the why effortlessly. The real hands on experience was invaluable and stimulated good quality debate on what our approach as an organisation should be. An enjoyable, informative and practical session.”

Sara Blackwell

Business Development Director, Greenwoods Solicitor

“Carolyn was engaged to help us refresh our marketing strategy. This involved strengthening our proposition, finding new ways to attract clients/participants and staying in touch with alumni. She provided much needed analytical rigour to this process and helped us identify a couple of major development opportunities. Carolyn’s approach is highly practical, yet strategic, and challenged our thinking (in a constructive way) about our marketing strategy and tactics. In addition to insights about our core proposition, she provided practical tips on improving our website, and plenty of creative ideas about how to get our message across in different media. She has a flexible and collaborative style which turned out to be extremely productive. I look forward to working with her again on the next stage of our marketing plan.”

Mark Law 

CEO Advanced Management Skills