FreelancePortfolio

Career

After 10 years as a (permanent and freelance) suit in marketing, advertising and communications agencies in London and Cape Town, I took the plunge into entrepreneurship in 2005 and started this site, Freelancentral. My vision is to make it easy for freelancers and their clients to find each other, and to promote freelancing as a respected, flexible and rewarding way of working. I launched Freelancentral's spin-off outsourced marketing strategy and management division, Peppermint Source, in January 2010. I still do a bit of freelancing myself - predominantly business (long copy) writing, editing and proofreading - and I can put together a mean PowerPoint presentation. I have a gift (curse?!) for being able to spot a typo just about anywhere, from ads on the Tube in London to menus, press ads, TV news captions... you name it - they just jump out at me. I write for BizCommunity and IT Web about life as an entrepreneur or about practical marketing.

Work Philosophy

The most important things to me in a work environment are: - Professionalism - Respect and good manners - Honesty and integrity - Thoroughness and conscientiousness - Enjoyment and fun. I also believe that work should be something you enjoy doing most of the time and I'm fortunate to have found a career now in which I absolutely love what I do and get to meet fascinating and inspiring people.

Inspiration

These things inspire me and give me ideas: - Living a balanced life - The beauty of nature (I can see the sea from my desk) - Small, everyday things which make me smile - The privilege of being a Capetonian - Creativity in all its forms and beautiful, well-designed or cleverly-written things - Mid-afternoon naps on a sunny sofa (increasingly rare!).