About me

After six years as Director of my own Ltd business, I am now looking for a new challenge through a return to full-time employment or contract work to continue my professional and personal development. Specifically, a new challenge at an integrated creative agency would be of great interest.

- Passionate and high energy team leader, mentoring and managing a combination of full-time and freelance staff
- Detailed planning and scheduling of content products from concept to delivery
- £1m+ budget responsibility, both internal and trust of procuring on behalf of client
- In-depth supplier analysis and review, lead to a 32% cost reduction
- Excellent level of communication with colleagues/clients at all levels
- Domestic and international partner/supplier management and contract negotiation
- Conflict/dispute resolution
- Extensive experience working with Adobe's Creative Cloud suite
- Collaboration/project management, accounting and PO software experience including Basecamp, Airtable, Trello, Monday.com, Xero, Workday
- Print production experience across digital, litho and large-format projects

In 2016, I launched and developed a successful and profitable creative business, Young's Media Productions Ltd, which has been active for over six years. YMP provides creative solutions for event and publishing businesses based in the UK B2B Education and Health sectors and international-focused B2B sport and iGaming industries. Other clients include Octopus Energy and 90TEN Group.
Combining the responsibilities of new business development and existing client/account management with internal tasks such as strategy, scheduling, accounts, supplier management and logistics, the company achieved year-on-year on growth reflected in -
- £51,615 revenue in FY 2016/17
- £76,616 in FY 2017/18
- £122,495 in FY 2018/19
- £185,973 in FY 2019/20
- FY 2020/21 = COVID!

As COVID hit in March 2020 it became apparent Trade Shows and Expos (particularly those reliant on international travel) weren't likely to recommence soon, so I co-founded Young's Design. Working with our Creative Director, the aim was to continue to grow the company by targeting the right type of companies/organisations and tender for new branding and graphic design projects, initially focusing on public sector organisations.

*Key achievements/projects: International Casino Exhibition (ICE), ExCeL London, UK*
Scheduled in 41 of the 44 halls, across three days with 35,000+ attendees and 600+ exhibitors, Clarion Gaming (a division of Clarion Events) was seeking a more creative approach for the Feature Areas within their exhibitions, including ICE and Affiliate events.
The scale of the events meant I had to increase team capacity by sourcing and coordinating extra freelance staff, whilst still fulfilling other contracts. Covering multiple international venues, I worked closely with Clarion, its sponsors, and local suppliers to review each brief thoroughly and, with my team, provide visual proposals for each area. The successful collaboration meant their sponsors received a larger return on their investment, increased brand exposure assisting their promotional activity at the event. With three events running concurrently, they involved over 700 items of signage.

*Key achievements/projects: GovNet Communications*
Organising 650 public sector events annually, the contract included full-time access to an experienced Account Manager (two days a week in-house and the rest remote) and our extended network of trusted and skilled freelance graphic designers. The detail was the development of marketing and operational collateral including the in-depth design of logos, colourways, content marketing, brochures, social media templates/images. We also started offering video editing as a service.

Together with their in-house Design team, I also presented a company-wide Learning Lunch 'Design Team: Good Design is Good Business'.

*Key achievements/projects: iGaming Business*
I provided full-time production management of their three magazines and annual directory as they transitioned to new ownership. Working closely with their in-house editorial and design teams, requirements included budget reporting, advertisement copy chasing, collating final print ready PDFs, managing paper, print and distribution suppliers. I also had access to and raised Purchase Orders through the client's Workday system.

Work
Articles
Achievements
Activity

Craig's work

Track Record magazine

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