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 Penmaen Media.

I worked closely with Carolyn Morgan for 8 years up to 2008. She was part of the executive team which turned around a mid-size magazine publishing business and doubled its size in the five years to 2005. 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 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 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“I engaged Carolyn to help Tribune Magazine with its digital publishing strategy, with a particular focus on digitising the archive.  She shared her knowledge of how other publishers have tackled this issue, advised on the business plan, and introduced us to commercial partners who are now supporting us in creating an online archive and driving revenues for the publication.  The archive will launch in early 2011. Carolyn possesses in-depth knowledge of digital publishing and has an impressive range of industry contacts. Her advice is always practical and we look forward to working with her again in future.”

Kevin McGrath, Publisher, Tribune Magazine

“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 notorously 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, utimately 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.” November 22, 2010

Brian Whitehead, Director, Arts Professional

‘Carolyn gained a detailed understanding of our business context and challenges extremely rapidly.  Her in-depth knowledge of current problems and solutions in publishing meant that she was able to question us intelligently and provide relevant expertise and sector knowledge to help us develop a cost-effective plan.  In a short space of time, Carolyn has added real value to our business.’

Pam Henderson, Chief Executive, Arts Intelligence Ltd

“Carolyn’s training 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 Solicitors

“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 Ltd

“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

“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

“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 is a high calibre strategic thinker with the proven capability to manage large business programmes from inception through to delivery. She is equally highly adept at dealing with a wide diversity of business challenges from a P and L and business delivery perspective. I would have no hesitation in recommending her for a senior role in a blue chip business”.

Ralph Percival, Digital Director Specialist, Bauer Consumer Media

“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 activites 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

“I worked with Carolyn at Emap Automotive and previously at Emap Apex. 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 everone 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

“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, Chairman of O2 and former Group Managing Director of Emap plc.

“Carolyn Morgan 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 also worked with small businesses on their digital marketing strategy:

“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

“I am CEO of Advanced Management Skills (www.amskills.com) and engaged Carolyn 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