This page isn’t a traditional speaker’s bio. It’s more of a personal logbook, by that I mean it’s a place for me to document my journey in public speaking and workshop facilitation.
It started back in 2019, translating Google’s Digital Garage courses for my marketing colleagues, and has grown from there. For me, preparing and delivering a talk has become a powerful tool for clarifying my own thinking.
But that doesn’t mean it comes naturally.
I’m a writer by trade which means the keyboard is where I feel most confident. Being the focus of attention feels deeply unnatural to me. For years, that held me back. But the shift came through practice and developing my own presenting style (and slide decks).
I learned to treat a talk like an article, structuring my ideas piece by piece. Each slide became a single frame in an animation, designed to walk the audience through a concept one step at a time. The nerves haven’t vanished, but they’re now secondary to the genuine enjoyment I get from sharing the experiments I’ve tried and exploring these ideas with my colleagues.
Recent sessions:
- AI as a critical friend (Internal talk, 2025): I recently shared my process for training my own AI writing partner (Rowan) with the marketing teams. The session focused on moving beyond generic prompts to build a genuinely useful tool that captures an authentic brand voice. Read my detailed reflection on the session.
- Directorate update on analytics (Internal, 2025): Presented a summary of our new analytics dashboards to the directorate, focusing on how to extract actionable insights from data rather than just reporting on metrics.
- Facilitator of the Digital Upskill Sessions (Ongoing): Led the creation of a monthly internal training series for my team. I facilitated the initial sessions on topics ranging from SEO to content strategy and have since enjoyed seeing other team members step up to teach.
- Panelist on digital strategy (University School Session, 2024): Joined a discussion panel to talk with academic staff about the practical applications of digital marketing in higher education.
- SEO and Looker Studio workshops (Internal, 2023): Developed and ran a series of hands-on training workshops to help the team get the most out of the custom SEO reporting tools I had built.
- SEO for arts businesses (virtual training 2021): Ran a virtual session about SEO for a community of artist business owners in the TableTop RPG niche.
- Google Digital Garage “translator” (Internal, 2019): My first real foray into facilitating. I led a series of talks that translated the concepts from Google’s training into the specific context of our work at the University.
Core themes I enjoy exploring
Looking back, a few core themes tend to emerge in my talks and workshops:
- Practical AI for professionals: Moving beyond the hype to build useful, everyday tools.
- Actionable analytics: Turning data into decisions.
- Collaborative SEO: Making search insights accessible to the whole team.
- The ‘Messy Process’ of content strategy: Building systems that are adaptable and authentic.
The next chapter
While I’m not actively seeking speaking engagements, I’m always open to interesting conversations. This logbook is a work in progress. If you’re working on something similar or have an event where you think these topics would be a good fit, feel free to get in touch.