Monday
Monday morning is an early start for the gym. I wake up to a very irritating dove cooing so loudly it sounds like it's perched on my ear, shortly followed by Radio 4 at 5.30am.
Despite my dawn start my train driver clearly had other ideas and once again the 5.50am is 15 minutes late.
My morning read is the Metro or if I had been awake enough to grab my iPad it would have been the Daily Telegraph. By 8.30am I feel seriously lively and up for my investment team's "start of the week" meeting not sure they feel entirely the same way.
This meeting sets the tone for the week and we go through any key issues and initiatives, as well as pressing topics such as whether my deputy, Jon Restall, should be wearing striped shirts with striped trousers. The debate continues...
As my first day back in the office after a two week break, today is all about catching up with the heads of department. Next up is a video call with Katrina Hutchison who heads up our Manchester office.
We discuss the results of the brilliant Festival Day we had at Mediacom North and how clients are really excited about capitalising on all the opportunities Time Inc. UK brands can offer them, beyond print.
I then get into some necessary, but somewhat functional, meetings about costs, paper weights, Salesforce and budgets. Needless to say the rest of the day disappears rather quickly.
Thankfully I am saved by my colleagues as we spend the evening in All Bar One. It ends with Havana Clubs but no one can really remember what was discussed. Not a bad way to start the week.
Tuesday
Laughed out loud several times while watching Veep on the train – clearly a cardinal sin for my fellow commuters.
Every month I organise a get together for all the key trading heads across the whole of Time Inc UK so we can share knowledge and talk over the key initiatives.
It's always a lively meeting full of debate and a desire to learn from each other, plus a healthy dose of industry gossip.
After lunch I head straight to Manning Gottlieb with Sam Finlay, our acting MD to meet with Lewis Shaw. We have a good dialogue about their agency structure, and how our investment team can accelerate their understanding of the digital world.
The afternoon involves meeting with the TV Times editor Ian Abbot on how we celebrate its 60th birthday in September, as well as how we maximise the incredible impact of the TV weeklies brands in the Christmas run-up.
Every day, without fail, my train journey home is a complete switch off for me. I spend time catching up with our brilliant brands, usually consisting of Now, Woman and Marie Claire, but Vanity Fair sneaks in too.
Once home I put my son to bed, then meet up with some girlfriends at The Pudding Stop, which gives me the much needed motivation for my run the next day.
Wednesday
The day kicks off in pain with a four mile run (crawl) as I am in training for the Great North Run, with the TV Times celebrity running team, who are lifelong supporters of Leukaemia and Lymphoma research, and raise over £2m every year, an incredible effort.
I meet with all the new recruits in my team. It's a brilliant tonic to the start of the day, chatting to the new talent and remembering what a fabulous and passionate industry this is.
Next stop is Sarah Tsirkas at Initiative and we converse about digital and the impact it’s having on luxury clients, their media budgets and how best to engage with luxury consumers when the end point isn't always e-commerce.
Over lunch (sadly in our 6th floor meeting room) there is a debrief meeting by Marie Claire’s publishing director, Justine Southall about the brand's beauty shop, a media and ecommerce first.
We talk through the launch of the premium beauty and wellbeing e-commerce site and standalone store in partnership with the Ocado Group, as well as the rapid change in the way women are buying beauty products and how our beauty proposition will reflect those changes and offer an outstanding service.
I grab a sandwich and walk over to MEC with Sam to meet Andy Hickson and Martin Beauchamp to chat about how we can align our brands across our platforms using new trading models powered by data intelligence.
Thursday is the day I take my son to Holiday Camp and have breakfast with him, which is always great fun for both us.
This morning he laughed and sneezed at the same time and promptly shot a mouth full of bacon sandwich straight onto my white shirt.
After a swift change, I head up to Manchester for a round-up with the team with our CEO, Marcus Rich who updates us on new initiatives including the brand new launch of NME Daily app, as part of NME’s brand transformation.
Then I pop over to meet with Lindsey Cook at Amplify to review some of our partnership deals as well as talk about what more we can do to drive the business forward.
We delve into recent insight piece on Connected Consumers 2, which attempts a fresh look at the impact various magazine media channels now have on the purchase journey.
After a late train home due to cancellations (loving Virgin Trains) I come back to find a sodden kitchen as a watermelon had blown up all over the work surface. You couldn’t make it up. Thank God it's Friday tomorrow.
Friday
After another tiring run – in which I am convinced a snail passed me - I meet with Sue Todd, CEO of Magnetic at Albion, for a coffee to hear about their plans for the back half of the year.
The autumn conference, some new research, and a new website for our customers are just some of the topics we cover. It’s great to have someone with Sue's energy championing magazine media.
I meet up with Mediacom’s Nick Langworthy at Eat Tokyo, and we have a good chat about the market and how our brands are successfully extending themselves beyond print, as well as how we tackle our respective sons’ recent discovery of swear words.
Lord knows where they pick it up from.
I finish the afternoon off looking at our forecasts for the next quarter and our projections for new business growth across all disciplines, which leaves me on a positive note for a weekend.
The lowdown
Age: 44, mentally 12
Favourite Media: Magazines of course – with a little Radio 4 thrown in and I would be lost without Sky Go
My biggest inspiration: My father. He was a risk taker and a successful man, and could blow you away with kindness and have me crying with laughter
Dream Job: Running my own riding stables
Not a lot of people know this about me: I used to teach windsurfing and water-skiing
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