ei Board & Team
Editorial Intelligence is committed to helping individuals and corporations seeking personal and professional excellence achieve it by developing deeper personal connections and having a more profound understanding of today’s information-overloaded landscape.
Charlie Burgess – Editorial Director & Board Member
Charlie Burgess has been a media adviser to a clutch of innovative companies for the past seven years. A recovering journalist, he worked in Fleet Street for nearly 30 years, latterly as the managing editor of The Independent where he was also the founding sports editor and the home editor. At the Guardian he was the media editor, the Saturday editor, travel editor and a sports writer. At the Daily Mail he was a features executive. He is also non-executive director of the CN Group. He spent two weeks as a Games Maker at the London Olympics. His hobbies include magic (look here at the hands of Charliethecard and if you are impressed, he is available for parties) and Carlisle United, his home town team. He lives in London with his wife. His two children visit occasionally. He has a small share in a beautiful pub in the Lake District, the Woolpack Inn in Eskdale, which you should visit.
Book(s) I recommend: Anything by Ed McBain
Favourite Art form/Artists: Magic, Jerry Sadowitz (his magic rather than his comedy)
Favourite Place: Eskdale, Cumbria and Brunton Park, Carlisle
Desert Island Dinner Companion: A plate of fish and chips
Andrew Davidson – eiClub Consultant
Andrew is a freelance consultant specialising in creative education and stakeholder relations. He began his career at legendary PR agency Hobsbawm Macaulay then, after a stint organising events at The Guardian, spent 12 years working in education policy and communications at the Design Council, Creative & Cultural Skills, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Department for Education & Skills. Andrew is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, was a school governor for eight years and sat on the steering group for a Heritage Lottery Fund project to celebrate Big Ben’s 150th birthday in 2009. He studied Visual Culture at University of Brighton, where he is now an alumni advisor. Andrew’s baking won ‘Best in Show’ at the De Beauvoir Flower & Produce Show in 2012 and 2013.
Books I recommend: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Henrich Boll, The History Man by Malcolm Brabdury and Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series
Favourite Art form/Artists: Tim Etchells, as seen at the 2014 Folkestone Triennial and the Hayward's Mirror City exhibition, is a current favourite
Favourite Places: Mull, Dungeness, Ogunquit
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Ferris Bueller or Lynda Snell
Stephen Fleming – eiDigest Editor
Stephen Fleming edits the eiDigest for Editorial Intelligence and runs his own communications and marketing consultancy – Copythatworks Ltd. He specialises in the planning and delivery of strategic internal communications programmes that promote staff engagement. Stephen is a former Daily Mail and Times staff journalist who has been working with Editorial Intelligence since 2007. He raises rare breed pigs.
Book(s) I recommend: Great North Road by Peter F Hamilton; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage and Taken by Robert Crais.
Favourite Art form/Artists:Music / Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Django Rheinhardt, Fall Out Boy, Joe Bonamassa, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Show of Hands.
Favourite place: Achiltibuie. Pub with friends.
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Francis Pryor, Brian Blessed, Tim Smit and Kelly Brook.
Harvey Goldsmith – eiClub Co-Chair & Board Member
Harvey is a legendary and visionary producer and promoter of rock concerts, charity events and television broadcasts. He has produced managed and promoted shows with most of the world’s major artists and was responsible for the two largest music events in the world, ever; Live Aid and Live 8. Harvey continues to promote and produce music shows to this very day. Harvey has received numerous awards including, CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 1996 and more recently to celebrate HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Harvey received the Diamond Award for his contribution to The Arts. In July 2012, Harvey received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Brighton. In June 2013 Harvey produced ‘Sound of Change Live’ at Twickenham Stadium, a four hour star-studded show presented by CHIME FOR CHANGE: recently founded by Gucci, which campaigns for improved Education, Health and Justice for women and girls worldwide.
Book(s) I recommend: Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore and Resilience by Andrew Zolli
Favourite Art form/Artists: Music – The Who
Favourite Place: Portugal
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Keith Richards
Tommy Helsby – Chairman, Editorial Intelligence
Tommy has worked for Kroll, the world’s leading corporate investigation company, for more than thirty years, initially in New York and then in London. The company, which has 30 offices in 17 countries, was acquired for $1.1 billion three years ago by a US private equity firm. While now playing a strategic and public role for the firm, particularly in developing its business in key emerging markets including Russia and India, he is still very active advising clients on corporate disputes and reputation issues, acquisitions and market entry strategies, and managing complex fraud investigations. He has appeared on television and radio in numerous countries and is regularly quoted in the press.
Book(s) I recommend: So many but maybe…Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
Favourite Art form/Artists: Theatre
Favourite Place: My kitchen
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Desert islands don’t come with companions
Kirsty Hurrell – Special Events Manager
Kirsty graduated from University in 2008 with a degree in Leisure Events Management with Arts and Entertainment. Since then she has worked in various roles in retail, hospitality, administration and events. She spent 2 years travelling around the world where her greatest experiences include trekking the Inca Trail, crossing the Bolivian Salt Flats, river cruising in the Borneo Rainforest and lodging with a local family on Lake Titicaca. Kirsty is Editorial Intelligence’s newest member, starting in August 2014.
Book(s) I recommend: First They Killed My Father by Loung ung
Favourite art: Music
Favourite Place: Florianopolis, Brazil
Desert Island companion: Noel Fielding
Julia Hobsbawm – CEO & Founder, Editorial Intelligence
Julia Hobsbawm founded the knowledge networking business Editorial Intelligence in 2005. Her aim to “bring connections and ideas to professional individuals who have been isolated for too long in their corporate silos” has become the benchmark for modern networking. In 2011 she was made Honorary Visiting Professor in Networking at City University London’s Cass Business School – a world first. She is also the only UK media businesswoman member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on “Informed Societies”. In a twenty five year media career spanning Telex to Twitter, she has worked in book publishing, television and politics. She is the author of several books, and is co-writing the new Editorial Intelligence education books and tutorials on networking for the Curious Corporation. She tweets from @juliahobsbawm.
Book(s) I recommend:
Switch! How small change makes big change happen by Chip and Dan Heath; the novels of Iris Murdoch and the poems of R.S.Thomas; the travel writing of Norman Lewis and A.A.Gill.
Favourite Art form/Artists:
The paintings of Edward Hopper and Rene Magritte, but I do love the Maggi Hambling sculpture 'Scallop' on Aldeburgh beach, home of Names Not Numbers.
Favourite Place: either Mersea Island in Essex, or the Island Manhattan; and almost any London park.
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Woody Allen for his self deprecatory wit; the late Edith Piaf for her story and her voice, and probably "Carlton your Doorman" from the 1970s sitcom "Rhoda".
Rachel Horigan – eiClub Co-ordinator
Rachel graduated from Durham University in 2013 with a first class degree in history, with a focus on modern Africa. She has since worked with a Palestinian educational charity and as the production assistant for a series of fashion shows across London Fashion Week. She has enjoyed 4 months travelling in South East Asia and somehow found herself au pairing for French Aristocracy. She hopes to plot future adventures abroad and would one day like to work in documentary production.
Book(s) I recommend: John Steinbeck's East of Eden, Azar Nafis' Reading Lolita in Tehran:A memoir in books, Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assasin, Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex
Favourite Art form/Artists: A Wes Anderson film…
Favourite Place: A good coffee shop…
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Shakespeare, Jon Ronson, Chet Baker
Laura Musins – Office Manager
Laura graduated from Exeter University in 2011, with a first in Archaeology. Since graduating she has worked in the juice bar of a health club and was also a research intern for Editorial Intelligence. She has recently returned to Editorial Intelligence full time. Her career history to date includes spells as a door-to-door seller of organic vegetables, a clerk in a travel agent, working as bar staff in Australia, and landscaping the courtyard of a stonemason’s showroom. Laura has practised Taekwondo for 10 years and also works as an assistant instructor.
Book(s) I recommend: Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom and Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
Favourite Art form/Artists: Simon Swinfield, who paints my favourite places in Pembrokeshire
Favourite Place: Sydney
Desert Island Dinner Companion: David Attenborough
Fiona Thorne – Non-Executive Director
Fiona is an expert in reputation management, campaign planning and business leadership. She is Director of Corporate Affairs at the Gala Coral Group where she is the member of the management team responsible for communication across regulatory and public affairs, financial PR and reputation management. Fiona is former CEO and Managing Director of Fishburn Hedges and during her 16 years with the agency she worked on issues and crisis management, strategic planning and campaign management for a broad range of clients including Nestlé SA, Shell, Bupa, the Bank of England, Gatwick Airports, Financial Ombudsman Service and HMRC. Fiona is also a member of Action for Children's Fundraising, Communications and Campaigns Committee as well as Non-Executive Director of Editorial Intelligence.
Books I recommend: “Albert Speer – His Battle with Truth” by Gitta Sereny
Favourite Art form/Artists: theatre – Shakespeare
Favourite Place: The terrace at Le Mulaie, Tuscany
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Nelson Mandela
Peter York – eiClub Co-Chair & Associate
Peter York is one of the UK’s leading strategic researchers. Also known as Peter Wallis, he co-founded the influential management consultancy SRU with Lord Stevenson. He is a former Board Trustee of Arts & Business and of the Tate Members’ Council. As Peter York, the writer, author and broadcaster on social styles and trends he writes regularly for the Independent and other broadsheets. He co-wrote the 80s bestseller The Sloane Ranger Handbook. (His update of it – Cooler, Faster, More Expensive – The Return of the Sloane Ranger, co-authored with Olivia Stewart-Liberty, was published in October 2007.) His BBC documentary, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Ad-Man’, was shown on BBC2 in September 2010. His latest book 'The Blue Riband' was published by Penguin in 2013.
Book(s) I recommend: Miss Piggy's Guide to Life
Favourite Art form/Artists:Interior Decoration
Favourite Place: Pimlico
Desert Island Dinner Companion: Barry Humphries