Journals Senior Commissioning Editor, Emerald Publishing
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, and what did you study? Where are you currently based?
I’m from Liverpool in the North-West of England, and I’m still based here now! I am very lucky that I get to work remotely and so didn’t have to move away from home for my career. I studied English Literature at the University of Liverpool, and during the final year of my degree completed a publishing placement with Liverpool University Press, which is when I realised I really wanted to do this full time as a career!
Describe your current role and organization. What are your main responsibilities? What type of organization do you work for?
Emerald Publishing is one of the world’s leading digital-first academic publishers, commissioning, curating and showcasing research that can make a real difference. We’re passionate about leading change, and align everything we do with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We want to be a facilitator of impact, encouraging equitable, healthy and sustainable research and publishing for all. I specifically work in our journals team, managing a portfolio of 19 titles in our HR, Learning and Organization Studies collection. I collaborate closely with my journal Editors to ensure we are providing excellent author experience through every stage of publication, which ultimately leads to us have a strong output of high-quality, impactful content that will serve our academic communities. I also have additional line management responsibility of one of our Commissioning Assistants, as well as leadership of our Manuscript Transfer Service.
Share your journey in scholarly publishing. What was your first role in this field, and how did you land it? What path led you to your current position? What unexpected challenges have you faced?
I still consider myself very much in the early stages of my career! My first experience of scholarly publishing was through my publishing placement with Liverpool University Press during the final year of my undergraduate degree. I took the alternative route compared to the standard ungrad, and chose the placement over completing a dissertation, which at the time felt crazy but looking back was the best thing I could have done to kick-start my career. The role with LUP gave me such a great intro to scholarly publishing and meant that I had hands on experience once I graduated. I also took on some ad-hoc voluntary roles which supported my skills development whilst I searched for my first full-time position. The most unexpected challenge for me was COVID hitting just as I was finishing my final semester, making finding a job in publishing incredibly hard!
I took on a Journals Commissioning Assistant role with Emerald at the start of 2021, which was my first career role. I was very lucky to have supportive colleagues who contributed so much to my professional development in that first year, and by the end of 2021 I had landed a promotion to Commissioning Editor. I’ve been here ever since and recently stepped up into a Senior Commissioning Editor role!
Can you share a memorable project, achievement, or pivotal moment in your career development? Was there a defining moment or influential person who shaped your career?
A stand-out achievement for me was receiving one of the SSP Early-Career Fellowship spots in 2024. To receive a place on such a highly regarded programme was a defining moment to me, and I wanted to take every opportunity to learn and develop during that time. I had the pleasure of being mentored by SSP President-Elect Rebecca McLeod, who was full of advice and wisdom, and I was so appreciative of her time. A key project that was part of the Fellowship programme was creating and presenting a poster at the SSP Annual Meeting. It felt a bit surreal to know our poster was hanging in the same hall with other work by key industry figures such as the CEO of ScienceOpen and the Content Director of SSRN with Elsevier! I took so much from the Fellowship and feel that has really helped develop my career.
What tools, websites, and organizations are essential for your career growth? How do you stay updated with industry trends and developments?
I find the Scholarly Kitchen has been such a useful resource for me, not just when I was first starting out and wanting to learn everything there was to know about scholarly publishing, but even now it is fantastic for keeping up to date with what is going on in the industry. I also subscribe to James Butcher’s Journalology which similarly gives a great round-up of industry news. I think industry mentorships can also be so valuable for early-career professionals, and so being on the look out for that kind of opportunity is important.
How do you balance your professional and personal life? Any fun facts or hobbies outside of scholarly communications?
I think it is really important, especially for those of us earlier on in our career, to find that balance and to know you can’t say yes to everything. Of course, we want to be taking on those additional responsibilities that’ll allow us the opportunity to develop our skills and grow in our professional lives, but it should never be to the detriment of our personal lives!
I work remotely and so it is really easy to think, oh I’ll just pop back on my laptop and finish up replying to that email, or wrap up that task, but setting boundaries about logging off and closing the door to the office has really helped me. Our team at Emerald is also really great with supporting work-life balance, allowing for flexible working and condensed hours- I work longer days Mon-Thurs which allows me Friday off and I find that really suits me. We also have an organization-wide “no meeting zone” during lunch time, to encourage everyone to take their breaks.
I am a big Everton supporter and so most of my weekends are spent watching the football. The rest of the time I’m with my family, including my three cats who are very spoilt!
