From loving storytelling to graduating with a top degree from @UniofOxford to being rejected from every publishing & broadcasting internship I found to getting @_CreativeAccess internship to winning awards marketing chart-topping books audiobooks & podcasts to this, 8 years on!

In 2012 a young girl started her first day as one of the first @_CreativeAccess interns at a publishing company not knowing that 8 years later she would be listed on #TheBookseller150 list and named as one of the most influential people in the publishing industry!

The moral of the story is don’t give up & don’t let other people write you out of your story. Write it yourself and share it.

I am just a state school educated black girl from North London who loved to read books & listen to audiobooks & music & watch films when I was growing up and I loved talking to other people about them! Many people are like this, no different from me.

I’m someone who likes listening to storytellers, thinking about interesting ways to bring ideas to life & amplifying & telling people about them. If there’s 1 thing I’ve learned it’s that need more stories & storytellers but we crucially also need more stories told about them.

The gems that are books, audiobooks, and podcasts deserve to be heard by as many people & that only happens as many people who know about them via pr/marketing/comms (having marketed many no.1s it’s one of the few things that differentiates the no.1s from the no.1 millions)

Shakespeare is literally Shakespeare because of an amazing global marketing and pr campaign that happened and continues to happen and if Shakespeare was alive today they would most definitely have a podcast!

Excited to see more young creatives, pr and marketing genies enter these industries & move into editorial/commissioning/developing winning awards, breaking boundaries & appearing on lists like this. Congrats to everyone on this list and in the publishing industry for all you do.

And what I’ve learned so far is that it’s important to keep your receipts & share your knowledge & mentor others. Find like-minded people & examples that are masterful & more experienced & learn from them. Keep learning & doing. Be curious. Have a mission. Stay focused!

A few great non-fiction books that I’ve learned from @slayinyourlane, Originals by @AdamMGrant, Lean In For Graduates featuring @RosiannaRojas, Indistractable, Feel The Fear & Do It Anyway, Mindset by Carole Dweck, Becoming by @MichelleObama A Promised Land by @BarackObama

A few podcasts that have helped me (very biased as I produce the 1st one but to paraphrase Toni Morrison if there’s a podcast u want to hear that hasn’t been made yet, make it) Caught Off Guard growing up w/ gal-dem @Polyesterzine @mastersofscale @ArlanWasHere pod @hpsacredtext