During his tenure as editor-in-chief of the largest division of Emap (now Bauer) he was also involved in the launch and relaunch of 16 specialist magazines, two of them in the business-to-business arena. He also attended several high-level management courses, including those run by renowned coaching guru David Hemery and the innovation company What If.

It was during his time as editor-in-chief that John started designing and running training courses. These started modestly, covering the basics journalistic skills, but soon developed into innovative programmes that were replicated by Emap’s various divisions. He gave several of his presentations, such as ‘The Psychology of Selling’ and ’14 Questions Managers Hate’, to editorial teams and executives throughout the business.

He then returned to hands-on editing, first with Britain’s biggest motorcycle magazine Bike. This had previously suffered two years of decline, but went on to grow in the face of a market that fell by an average of 8%. He also spent time on one of Bauer’s most profitable publications, Motorcycle News, which, at the time, sold over 400,000 copies a month. Having been brought in to oversee a major relaunch, John became addicted to the challenge of weekly news and spent three years as the news editor.

Now a freelance journalist he splits his time between training journalists, coaching editors, writing, and consultancy work. He now also runs several highly successful blogging courses, that have recently been taken up by two Government departments. As a writer he has won three major awards and contributed features to numerous magazines, national papers and websites.