About us

Our approach

Our experience of training hundreds of managers and leaders from a wide range of publishing companies has given us good insight into what works well. As a result, we have developed an approach that balances training on the more transactional aspects of management, including such crucial areas as performance development and giving feedback, with content that looks at what it takes to be a manager or leader, encompassing such topics as self-awareness, personal impact and effective communication – topics that might be grouped under the general heading of emotional intelligence (EQ).

How we met

We always encourage people we meet to reach out to others doing interesting things in publishing. That’s how we first met, when Clare got in touch with Nancy to find out more about her diversity and inclusion work. Over coffee, we realised just how much we had in common – including our firm belief that people in publishing need the right management and leadership support to do their jobs well, and to help others develop and grow. We created our first introductory management course because we wish someone had shared the basics with us when we first became managers. The rest, as they say, is history.

Our founders

Clare Grist Taylor has been a non-fiction publisher for nearly 40 years, working across academic, professional and trade sectors, and publishing everything from trade books to large-scale online reference works. She started her publishing career with journals publisher, Pergamon Press, was European editorial director at Prentice Hall, managing director of ICSA Publishing, and business and operations director at Profile Books. She now helps authors to tell their stories through her work as The Accidental Agent and as Editor-at-Large at Profile Books. She also shares what she knows through training, mentoring and as a non-executive. She is an Independent Publishers Guild (IPG) mentor, an Advisor at the University of Wales Press and a trustee of the Montgomeryshire Literary Festival. 

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/claregristtaylor/

Nancy Roberts spent 20 years in the publishing sector working in production and operations for companies ranging from Penguin to Cambridge University Press, where she led a global team of over 150 staff. She now has a portfolio career: she is the founder of Umbrella, a tech startup which uses data analytics, AI and machine learning to help businesses realise the benefits of a more diverse workforce, and she is also Head of Technology and Content at Maverick, providing specialist consultancy to publishers. She has a PhD in Postcolonial Feminist Literary Theory and an Executive MBA from Cranfield University. She is also a NED for Break the Mould and sits on various advisory boards, including We and AI, a non-profit aiming to inform the public about the risks and benefits of AI, and the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board of the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

www.linkedin.com/en/nancy-umbrella