We're super excited to welcome Megan to The International Bunch as our new Head of Content as of March 2020. We caught up with Megan in her first week to chat about this exciting move and what better way to publish this post than on International Women's Day (#InternationalWomenDay2020 #InternationalWomensDay).
Do you want to start off by telling our readers a bit about yourself and your professional background?
Absolutely. I have held a range of roles across marketing, scholarly comms and publishing over the last 12 years. My earlier career was very much focused on traditional academic publishing, with roles as a Managing Editor and a Publisher looking after portfolios of journals and book series. During my time at university studying English Literature, and later on my MA in Literary Studies, I became very interested in the process of content creation, curation and dissemination, and a career in academic publishing was a natural step to take.
After gaining some valuable experience in these roles I took a move to widen my skill set and become more focused on dissemination and scholarly comms by moving over to a university setting to run their research and enterprise marketing and comms. This was a great role for learning about the lifecycle of research and the complex relationships between funders, researchers, institutions, practitioners and policymakers. Following this, I went on to become the Press Manager for the University of Huddersfield Press, and this is the role that most people will know me for. It has been an amazing experience to single-handedly run a small open access university press, and my three and a half years in this role have been so varied, focusing on a range of areas including open access, research dissemination, specialist monograph production, academic content marketing, and a lot more I don’t have space to list here!
What excites you the most about your move to become Head of content for The International Bunch?
Talking about my background for this blog post has really highlighted to me how, although my roles and experience feel very varied over the years, there really is a common thread hanging it all together: the significance of quality, informed content, and strategic communications to disseminate it. I have known Lou Peck, the Managing Director of The International Bunch, for almost two years, and we realized straight away that we have a shared passion for developing and disseminating high-quality content.
In my new role, I am working with librarians, publishers, societies, funders, researchers, authors, marketing specialists and comms teams and the thing that excites me most about this is that I get to work with people who love what they do, just like me and Lou!
Finally, outside of your working life, how do you like to spend your time?
I live in Yorkshire with my partner and our four-year-old daughter, and a very grumpy old cat. We live next to a river and some woods, and when the Yorkshire rain lets up a bit I love to spend time out exploring with my family. I’m also a bit of a fantasy and sci-fi addict, particularly when it comes to books, and like to try my hand at a bit of yoga now and again, although I’m a bit too fidgety for it really.
Connect with Megan
Email – megan@internationalbunch.com
Publications - ORCID