After a few years at American Vogue in Paris, delivering dresses to Madonna and gaining invaluable experience in marketing and branding, Tilly McAuliffe began to carve out a niche for herself in the publishing world. By 2000, she had Co-Founded Think Publishing in London, and since then has driven its evolution from publishing agency to media owner, acquiring Wanderlust two years ago and most recently, Morris Visitor Publications.

We spoke with Luca Da Re, who heads up the Marketing and Digital strategy of the Mark Allen Group (MAG). With their ever-growing portfolio, Da Re is in charge of marketing campaigns for at least 40 brands. He explains how his role has evolved since he began at MAG as the business has grown to embody both traditional and new marketing channels, from newsstands, to events, to exhibitions and social media.

In the last decade, Farrah Storr has pioneered the success of two iconic magazines, Womens Health and Cosmopolitan, and now sits at the helm of one of the most iconic fashion titles, ELLE UK. "Every time I go into a brand, I look at the very first issue, because that tells you the entire recipe of the brand" Storr explains. "You then reinterpret it for the culture you grew up with."

With the rise of digital comes the rise of SEO and analytics as data becomes increasingly important in the publishing industry. Knut Henriksen knows all about this, having worked with marketing and SEO from the very start of his career. Now Head of SEO & Analytics at Haymarket Media Group, Henriksen ensures data and trust in data is consistently prevalent in the newsroom, encouraging all teams to integrate it into their everyday work.

At this year's PPA Independent Publisher Conference, Julian Rose spoke about the way in which his company, Chemical Watch, has pivoted from a B2B news business to an enterprise membership platform. I spoke to Rose about the market research behind this decision and how they are maximising customer value.

The nation was thrown into a frenzy last week when an exclusive interview in Railway Modeller magazine revealed that Sir Rod Stewart has spent 23 years building a model city and railway. Steve Flint, editor and photographer at the magazine was one of the two individuals lucky enough to conduct the interview with Sir Rod, now that he has finished his Grand Street and Three Rivers City model.

After winning two accolades at last week's Independent Publisher Awards, Happiful's Head of Content and Podcast Host, Lucy Donoughue, spoke to us about the evolution of her own career as well as the Happiful brand since it began in 2017. As well as writing for the magazine, Lucy has had the opportunity to sit down with a number of public figures to discuss their experiences of mental health as the Happiful podcast host. "My biggest challenge is just to relax when I meet the guests and focus solely on the conversation between the two of us", she tells me. "It’s one of the things I love most about my job."

On Friday November 8, a number of industry voices will be convening under one roof at the PPA Independent Publisher Conference to talk about a variety of topics including product management in publishing. I spoke with Laura Jenner, Product Director at Immediate Media, who will be presenting on this particular subject, having established herself as a key player in product management within the publishing industry. We spoke about her journey from editorial to product, the difference between the two when it comes to deadlines and the ways in which product has evolved over the last decade.

As Rouleur gears up for Rouleur Classic, their three-day cycling event starting tomorrow, I managed to steal a spare moment with their Marketing Manager, Ben Ward, to speak about the power of the Rouleur brand.

Ben spoke about the importance of validity and honesty when building a magazine brand, ensuring it stays true to itself. It is the deep understanding of what the Rouleur audience want and need that won them PPA Independent Publisher Brand of the Year last year and got them on the shortlist for 6 categories this year.

We spoke to the official Dennis the Menace artist about his childhood passion for drawing comics, how he makes the cartoons relevant to readers in these rapidly changing times and how an editor once told him to forget about creating humour strips. All these years and thousands of comic strips later, it seems that Nigel Parkinson has the last laugh!

While you might not be surprised to find a child glued to a television or mobile phone screen, you might not expect to find them with a magazine in their hand. Amanda Clifford, Editorial Director of Signature Publishing, which has launched over 17 children's magazines, speaks to us about just how popular this medium is for the young, the massive post bag they receive every day and how they track what's trendy and what's not.