Mentoring
30 years of journalism, brought to the conversation.
One-to-one mentoring for journalists, editors and media leaders – shaped around your career, your leadership and the realities of modern media, and built on more than three decades inside the industry.
- Journalism
- Editorial leadership
- Audience growth
- Digital change
- Careers
Experience changes how you see the problem.
I've worked as a journalist, an editor, a digital leader and a strategist – leading newsrooms through disruption, changing audiences and the constant task of developing the people around me.
That changes how you see a problem. You recognise the shape of it, you know the questions worth asking, and you understand that most of what feels overwhelming has been faced before.
01Who it's for
Who mentoring is for
Mentorlism is for journalists at every stage, from people entering journalism to those leading a newsroom or media organisation. What we work on changes as your career develops. How seriously the conversation takes you doesn't.
Getting started & early-career
People trying to get into journalism and early-career reporters – finding your feet, building your journalism, establishing goals and working out where you want to go.
Journalists & editors
Sharpening your craft and judgement, building digital and audience skills, and making the move from doing great journalism to leading the people who do it.
Newsroom leaders & executives
Leading teams and other leaders, managing change, setting strategy and making decisions at organisational scale.
02The conversation
Bring me the thing you're actually thinking about.
A difficult decision. A role you're considering. A leadership problem. A career that feels stuck. Change you didn't ask for. Ambition you're not sure how to act on. Or simply the question: what next?
03Perspective
What 30 years teaches you
People matter.
Nearly every newsroom problem is a people problem underneath. Teams succeed or fail on how people are led, developed and actually listened to.
Careers rarely move in straight lines.
The best moves seldom look obvious at the time. Setbacks, sideways steps and unplanned opportunities run through almost every career worth having.
Leadership gets tested when things get difficult.
Anyone can lead when it goes well. What defines a leader is the call no one enjoys making and the conversation no one wants to have.
Change is constant.
I've spent much of my career inside journalism's reinvention. The specifics keep shifting; the need to adapt, and to bring people with you, never does.
I won't tell you what to do. I'll help you work out what you want to do – and how to get there.
I bring experience and perspective. But the conversation stays about you.
The work is asking the right questions, weighing the options honestly and helping you decide – not handing out formulas, and not pretending there's one correct path.
04The process
How mentoring works
A first conversation
We start with where you are, what's in front of you and what you want to change. No script, no set programme.
Focused sessions
Regular one-to-one conversations built around your real situations – the decision this week, the team you're leading, the role you're weighing up.
Between sessions
Practical thinking you can use immediately, and a sounding board when something lands on your desk that you didn't expect.
05Topics
Problems we can work on
Mentoring is led by what you bring to it. These are the areas it most often helps with.
- Career strategy
- Journalism
- Leadership
- People management
- Newsroom management
- Digital journalism
- Audience growth
- Content strategy
- Transformation
- Executive decision-making
06In their words
“Thank you for giving me a shot 13 years ago, for mentoring and teaching me, for helping me advance my career in directions and ways I’d never considered when I started as a cadet reporter on a local paper. Thanks for always enabling us to put our families first, for being there when life got shit and for being an actual human being. Thank you for everything.”
07Questions
Common questions
Who is this for?
Journalists at every stage of their career – from people trying to get into journalism and early-career reporters, through to editors, newsroom leaders and media executives.
How are sessions run?
One-to-one, and shaped around the problems you're actually facing rather than a fixed curriculum. Format and cadence are agreed together in the first conversation.
What can we work on?
Career strategy, leadership and people management, newsroom management, digital journalism, audience growth, content strategy, transformation and executive decision-making.
How do I start?
Book a conversation. It's an informal first discussion to work out whether mentoring is the right fit and where it could help most.
What's next for you?
If you're weighing up your next move, leading a team for the first time, or navigating change, the first conversation is the place to start.