Portfolio North editor Cassie Moyse discusses new appointments to the team.
It’s important to understand your own strengths and weaknesses to continue improving and moving forward. Although I thoroughly enjoy wine, dining and travel, I’m sadly not an expert sommelier, my culinary expertise isn’t anywhere near that of a Michelin starred chef and I currently haven’t visited as much of the world as I would like. Because of this, it was very important for Portfolio North to team up with the best possible specialists in each field to ensure that we bring our readers engaging and expertly written features to enjoy.
We are delighted to have welcomed renowned restaurateur Terry Laybourne to share the best recipes from across the 21 Hospitality Group venues for our readers to try at home. Terry is a much-loved and celebrated figure in the North East and I look forward to featuring his delicious recipes in each of our upcoming editions.
Our second appointment is Geoff Moore, managing director of North East based luxury yacht charter specialists West Nautical, as our contributing travel editor. I don’t know anyone who travels as much as Geoff, who visits various fabulous locations all in the name of best practice on almost a weekly basis. West Nautical also arrange some of the best holiday and travel experiences in the world, so I know that his advice on where to visit will be second-to-none. We’ve worked alongside West Nautical for many years, so it’s great to officially welcome Geoff to our contributors’ team.
Wine expert David Harker joins us as contributing wine editor. David’s knowledge on wine is outstanding thanks to his passion and education. He runs Newcastle Wine School, and travels to sample the best wines in the world. David also has a passion for journalism and writing – a combination of talents which meant he was the perfect guy for the job.
Experienced journalist and PR-guru Wayne Halton joins us as contributing business editor. His appointment now allows us to run a range of regular business interview columns and features including The Big Interview in each print edition, What Makes Me Tick which is shared online every Wednesday and our monthly Ask The Entrepreneur quick Q and A round. Wayne and I worked together for many years when I was straight out of University, he was my first mentor, so it’s great to be working together again.
We’ve appointed a lead photographer, Sean Evans, who will be supporting us in creating our own photography style for our business interviews, covering events and other projects which crop up along the way. He’s a very talented young photographer whose enthusiasm and passion really impressed us and I am looking forward to supporting him in his new career journey.
Jason Taylor joins us as Head of Client Relationships in Yorkshire, as we announce plans to run six magazines a year in the area, as well as our established Nort East presence. We’ve hit the ground running securing launch partners for our first edition which is very exciting. There’s a fantastic buzz in Yorkshire and plenty going on to report on. One partnership is with the stunning Grantley Hall, and we’ve teamed up to offer an amazing hotel stay and dining experience to one lucky subscriber to our new Yorkshire edition.
Our growth hasn’t stopped there. We’ve got more clients and opportunities than ever so we’re looking to grow our team and welcome various new team members very soon. For me, one of the most important aspects of creating Portfolio North was to make sure that it’s a great place to work. Somewhere that the team can grow, learn and thrive. I was bowled over by the response and applications – and I’m really looking forward to the interviews next week.
Our digital evolution continues as we make changes to our website, incorporating some more of our brighter brand colours and creating separate pages for our North East and Yorkshire news. We’re about to launch our Yorkshire and Wine Club e-newsletters too, following in the footsteps of our successful North East email newsletter which now has thousands of subscribers. Our website traffic doubled last month, as it continues to grow steadily. We’ve also made some changes to our website, incorporating some more of our brand colours and creating separate pages for our North East and Yorkshire news.
I was lucky enough to take some time out in the last couple of months, and I couldn’t resist picking up a pile of magazines in the airport to study while I had some headspace. Our style is complimented regularly, but with the launch of our new Yorkshire edition comes the perfect excuse to create some more regular features and make some layout changes to keep Portfolio North looking fresh and contemporary.
We’ve also set up a LinkedIn community for marketers in the North called The Marketing Memo. The plan is to create a community style hub for marketing folk in the North to share inspiration and ideas. I find that no one understands marketing challenges like marketeers so it’s great to have somewhere we can turn for support and guidance- more to follow on this.
I think that’s most of the exciting stuff! Hope you all enjoy reading and as always, thank you for your support.
