Founded in 2002, Ashridge Communications is a marketing and communications consultancy specialising in supporting membership organisations. Our clients include professional bodies, trade associations, charities and trade unions.
"We like taking a hands-on approach. We have a talented team of people to help us, and often draw on their specialist skills. But having run large teams in the past, the Directors enjoy taking a direct lead on all our client projects."
"I found Ashridge extremely professional, thorough and experienced. They are also great guys to work with. I would fully recommend them."
Mike Barnes, formerly Director of Marketing and Business Development, Direct Marketing Association
Senior Executives
Founder and Director
Prior to setting up Ashridge Communications Duncan spent his working life mainly as a Director of various communications companies.
Over the last 30 years Duncan has been involved in building communications businesses from a small base to £30 + million turnover. He has been a director and shareholder both of independent businesses and parts of larger organisations such as Ladbrokes and Omnicom. He also had board responsibility for design, PR and publishing businesses.
During this time he has worked across many market sectors and has also chaired membership organisation committees and judged various awards.
Telephone: 01494 757289
Email: dg1@ashridgecommunications.com
Director
Prior to joining Ashridge Communications, Ian spent his working life in senior management positions in large international agency groups, small communications consultancies and blue chip clients.
These include senior marketing/communications positions at Kraft Foods, Thomson Holidays, The Wall's Meat Company (Unilever), British Posters, Young and Rubicam (Cato Johnson) running the Mirror Group Newspapers account, prior to owning and launching his own communications businesses. During this time he has worked across most major market sectors and brings expertise in different areas of the marketing mix; from design to advertising, from DM to promotions, in both B2B and B2C.
He has extensive media and publishing experience including major projects with Reed Business Information, William Reed Publishing, Harpers, Silicon.com. the Builder Group (now UBM) and Primesight (Scottish Media Group).
Telephone: 01494 757209
Email: ip1@ashridgecommunications.com
Associate Director
A communications professional with over 12 years' experience working at senior level within membership organisations such as PPA (the magazine industry's trade body), APA (the Association of Publishing Agencies) and AEO (the Association of Event Organisers). Hilary is a seasoned association executive, skilled at identifying stakeholders' common issues and pulling together strategies to address them.
Experience includes member recruitment and retention; working with stakeholders at all levels; designing and commissioning research programmes; full marketing responsibility for a range of B2B and consumer specialist magazines; marketing and promotional campaigns; managing major events; strategic communications planning.
Telephone: 01442 459707
Email: hl1@ashridgecommunications.com
Research Consultant
Emma has spent twelve years working in marketing and market research, most recently at BDRC, where she was Research Director and a member of the MRS. She has designed and run a wide range of research projects and programmes - qualitative and quantitative - and is an experienced moderator. Her clients at BDRC included English Heritage, National Trust, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Docklands Light Railway, Ramblers' Association, RCI, ZSL (Zoological Society of London) and the MLA (Museums Libraries and Archives commission). Much of her work has focused on membership propositions (including new product development), communications, recruitment and retention.
Management Development Senior Consultant
John works as a performance coach throughout the world with teams, individuals and organisations enabling them to achieve extraordinary results. He has worked with a wide range of blue chip clients including the NHS, BBC, Tetra Pak, GSK, Yell.com, The Defence Leadership Academy and the Army, Navy and RAF. John lectures at Ashridge Business School on the MBA Leadership tailored and open programmes. In the sporting world, John enjoyed considerable success with Bath Rugby in the 09/10 season as their sports psychologist and has worked with the RFU, WRU, Middlesex CCC and West Indies Cricket.
Typically, John's methods include seminars, workshops, team events, conferences, one to ones and motivational speaking.
Publishing and Events Consultant
Eddie has wide ranging publishing, event and sales experience. As a director of contract publishing companies he has made a major contribution to client's businesses.
As well as publishing many consumer, membership and B2B titles such as Chartered Banker for the Chartered Institute of Bankers, he also worked on large events such as EMAPs largest retail technology exhibition in Europe and recently worked on exhibitions in Germany and various one day regional shows in the UK.
Eddie leads the Ashridge Communications team on exhibition and sponsorship sales for the Royal College of Nursing's Annual Congress.
Sales Manager
Mark is a hugely experienced and committed advertising sales professional.
Over the years Mark has been responsible for building advertising revenues and client bases, often from scratch, for many clients across many sectors. He made a significant contribution to the Institute of Financial Services (Chartered Institute of Bankers) magazine and Financial Innovation Awards held at the City of London's Guildhall.
He has worked with Duncan Grant for over 10 years in advertising and sponsorship sales management and most recently has headed up the sales for Ashridge Communications on Health Management magazine where we successfully doubled revenues.
Senior Sales Consultant
Jenny applies her unique brand of consultative selling and organisation to all projects she handles. As well as making a significant contribution to revenue on Ashridge Communications client projects her past experience includes working as Events Manager at the Baby Products Association where she had a specific remit for organising conferences, seminars and the annual industry trade show at the NEC, Birmingham.