Governance

Sue has worked her entire career in the news industry in both editorial and business leadership roles and across all media types.

Most recently, Sue worked as general manager for Reuters News Agency, overseeing all commercial and business activities.

Sue joined Reuters in 2015 as global head of news agency products, and in 2018 she became managing director for Reuters products and news agency strategy. Before her career at Reuters, she worked at Associated Press for 14 years.

From Derbyshire, Sue began her career as a trainee reporter at the age of 17 at the Derby Evening Telegraph, completing her NCTJ training at Richmond College in Sheffield.

After several years reporting for independent radio, Sue progressed into editorial roles at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN where she edited the flagship News at Ten.

Sue became chair of the NCTJ in September 2024.

Abu Bundu-Kamara is a diversity & inclusion strategist and thought leader who is passionate about helping leaders and companies embrace change in a New World Marketplace. With a proven track record and over 20 years’ experience in business and human resource management, he works with leaders to embed diversity & inclusion in their decision making through both system redesign and leadership development. Abu currently works for Boeing, as their global diversity and inclusion lead.

Abu has previously worked for Pearson, BAE Systems, Ryman’s, Enron and The Canary Wharf Management Group.

Alan Edmunds is group chief operating officer for Reach, a role he assumed in July 2020, having spent the previous ten months running the regionals division of the business.

Before taking on the regionals MD role, Alan had fulfilled the role of editorial director for regionals since 2017, having previously been MD and Editor in Chief at Media Wales.

At Media Wales, Alan had overall responsibility for the Western Mail, WalesOnline, the South Wales Echo, a series of weekly titles as well as Wales on Sunday and a portfolio of free magazines.

Under Alan’s leadership, Media Wales became the first fully integrated regional newsroom in the UK (merging five separate teams formed around each title into a single team producing the whole digital and print portfolio) in 2007, having been sent to Europe and America by the company to study new ways of working.

Alan, who studied law at Bristol University before taking a postgraduate journalism diploma at Cardiff University, is a Cardiff boy who joined Media Wales as a trainee reporter in 1986.

He held various reporter and management titles with the company before becoming editor of Wales on Sunday in 1997 and then taking the helm of the Western Mail five years later.

He also sits on the board of the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

He is married with three daughters.

Toby Granville has been the editorial director at Newsquest – the second largest regional newspaper publisher in the UK – since February 2015. Toby began his career in 1990 at the Sunday People. He gained his first editorship at the age of 26 at The Wharf which won Newspaper of the Year under his leadership.

Since joining Newsquest in 2002 Toby has edited a number of its award-winning daily titles such as the Dorset Echo and Bournemouth Daily Echo and was named Editor of the Year in 2011. In his current role Toby is leading the editorial strategy in Newsquest’s newsrooms publishing more than 160 local and regional titles across the UK.

Michelle Johnson is editorial director at independent publishing company Vantage Media, directing the company’s growth strategy while ensuring world-class content is delivered to a diverse range of clients and projects.

As editor-in-chief of Tempus, a London luxury lifestyle magazine, Michelle oversees all aspects of editorial production, from content planning and commissioning to design and distribution.

Before joining Vantage, Michelle worked for Hello! magazine for six years, as international and features writer, and then head of video. She began her journalism career as a freelance journalist, copy editor and editor, which included editing six issues of Archant’s Essex Life magazine.

Michelle completed her NCTJ qualification at Harlow College in 2010.

Jas was appointed as the financial trustee of NCTJ in September 2019.

She spent 11 years at Pearson PLC where her most recent role was international finance director for Pearson Vue, the global professional assessments division. Prior to that she worked for three years at the Financial Times Group, the parent company of the FT newspaper, as their head of financial planning and analysis.

Jas recently opted for a change in direction to her career and is now working for a not for profit GP federation in central London. She is also a volunteer at several charities.

Jas has been a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants since 2000 and has a broad range of experience working in commercial and technical financial roles.

Neil was appointed commercial director of NLA media access in October 2016. Prior to that he spent 30 years as a magazine publisher working across a number of key sectors including custom publishing, consumer and B2B in businesses ranging from the FT, Puzzler and DC Thomson, the latter as head of publishing. He oversees NLA’s end user licensing operation, based in Tunbridge Wells, as well as its teams responsible for business development, publisher services and media monitoring organisation liaison.

Since joining Sky News in 1995, John Ryley has been at the heart of Sky News’ success and transformation into a world-class news organisation.

In 2009 he launched a campaign for leaders’ debates which have transformed the nature of the election campaign, raising voters’ interest and heightening political engagement. It led to a call by CBS anchor Dan Rather for his knighthood “for getting these debates on the air because for the first time the British public gets to see the three candidates, no filter, right in front of themselves for three good sessions.” John has begun a campaign for cameras in court.

During his time at Sky News, John has pioneered innovative, live coverage of breaking news and news events for the award-winning channel. Credits include Sky News’ extensive live coverage of the Louise Woodward case in 1997, which secured the channel’s biggest audience yet. He produced Sky’s RTS award-winning coverage of the Princess of Wales’s funeral and as executive editor took a leading role in Sky’s coverage of the 9/11 attacks, for which the channel won its first BAFTA award.

In August 2002, John was responsible for devoting the channel’s output to coverage of the Soham murders, for which it won a second BAFTA award and an RTS award. John began his career in television news as a graduate news trainee at the BBC, followed by a stint on the BBC Nine O’clock News.

He joined ITN in 1990 and went on to become assistant programme editor on News at Ten and edited all ITV’s news shows. John was educated at Durham University and the Wharton School of Management.

Jo Webster is the deputy global editor for visuals at Reuters, the world’s largest independent news organisation. Jo helps to create and execute strategy for Reuters’ award-winning video and pictures team, driving value for Reuters’ media customers and consumers.

Prior to this role she was managing editor for strategy and operations in EMEA, responsible for multimedia coverage, speed, editorial staff security, training, budgets, strategic workforce planning and diversity. Jo joined Reuters in 2009 as a senior producer for Insider Financial TV. In 2015, she launched Reuters TV – a flagship consumer TV offering designed to showcase Reuters award-winning journalism and geographical reach on cutting-edge digital platforms.

Jo started her career in the trade press and had a front row seat to the 2007 financial crisis as a producer and on-screen reporter for CNBC Television, accumulating more than 3,000 hours of live TV gallery experience. She has also delivered major outside broadcasts, including ‘Davos Today’ for the World Economic Forum annually. Jo is a keynote and Tedx speaker, as well as a qualified hatha yoga instructor.

Martin Wright, editor of the Shropshire Star, started out in journalism as a trainee reporter on the weekly County Times newspaper in 1997 covering Mid Wales. After completing his training, he joined the Shropshire Star as a senior reporter in 1998, before returning to the County Times as deputy editor 12 months later.

He went on to become editor of the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertizer  in 2001, before returning to Mid Wales as editor of the County Times. He became deputy editor of the North Wales daily, The Leader, in 2005, before being appointed associate editor of NWN Media in 2009. He left NWN in April 2013, when he took over as editor of the Shropshire Star.

The role also involves overseeing a series of eight paid-for and free weekly newspapers covering Shropshire and Mid Wales, as well as various periodicals and magazines.