About Our Bloggers
The bloggers on this site are either full or co-opted members of the council or are contributing to the council by working on one of our very active hubs.
Email Marketing Council Members
Chris Combemale, Emailvision (UK) Ltd (Chair)
Skip Fidura, OgilvyOne Worldwide (Vice-Chair)
Simone Barratt, e-Dialog EMEA
Jonathan Burston, CACI Ltd
Jane Byrne, Thomson Directories Ltd
Fiona Cuthbert, EuroDirect Database Marketing Ltd
Rod Dutton, Red Eye International Ltd
Richard Gibson, RSA Direct
Rupert Harrison, News International
Kath Pay, Ezemail UK Ltd
Dela Quist, Alchemy Worx Ltd
Tink Taylor, dotmailer
Sara Watts, Data Media & Research Ltd
Liz Woodbridge, Mardev
Co-Opted Council Members
James Bunting, Communicator
Denise Cox, Newsweaver
Simon Jeffs, TMN Media
Email Marketing Council Hub Members
Blogger Biographies
Simone Barratt, e-Dialog
Simone Barratt is managing director of e-Dialog and a recognised thought-leader in digital direct marketing. Simone launched e-Dialog in 2001 and from the lows of the dot-com bust has grown the UK business to be recognised by industry analysts as the top performing Email Marketing Services Provider. Simone provides senior consultancy to clients including British Airways, RBS, Boots and Reuters, and has also expanded the company’s expertise into digital direct marketing across EMEA – serving clients such as Dell, Expedia Nike and HP in some 22 countries.
With over 25 years in digital direct marketing, Simone sits on the DMA Email Marketing Council, with a focus on deliverability, benchmarking, best practice and legislation. She has also represented the e-mail marketing industry on behalf of the DMA in Brussels, presenting proposals that contributed to the formulation of the latest EU legislation.
Simone is an email marketing evangelist and regular speaker at events including ad:tech, Inbox/Outbox, and the DMA Annual Conference. Simone is also committed to developing talent and has acted as a guest lecturer for the IDM’s Email Marketing course.
James Bunting, Communicator
James has been helping define the email marketing agenda for over a decade. In his role at the Communicator Corporation he heads up the Client Services division. This includes overall responsibility for ensuring the delivery of Communicator Corporation’s world-class Client Consultancy, Customer Support, Training and Delivery Assurance teams.
Along with being a frequent industry speaker and contributor to leading publications, James has been co-opted on to the Direct Marketing Association's Email Marketing Council and works on the DMA Email Benchmarking Hub. His objective with the DMA is to provide companies involved in email marketing with a series of benchmarks to help their planning and to enable them to make informed marketing decisions.
In his life before email, he held account management and strategic consultancy roles within the Leighton Group, delivering a wide variety of award winning campaigns.
Jonathan Burston, CACI Ltd
Jonathan, is Sales Director of CACI’s Customer Solutions Group. He joined the business in 2007 and is responsible for growing sales, new product development and marketing. Over the last 10 years, Jonathan has been a regular contributor to the DM press; a trainer on the DMA’s Buying your data workshop; Vice-Chairman of FEDMA and is currently a member of the DMA Email Marketing Council.
Jonathan started in the data industry back in 1997 when he joined HLB (part of WWAV) as data sales manager responsible for the sales and management of their list management portfolio.
In 1999 he joined Uni-Marketing heading up with list management department. During his time at Uni-Marketing the business became seen as one of the top three list management and broking companies in the UK, which culminated in the company winning the SMART Awards 2004 for Best List Manager and Best List Broker. He was also responsible for managing the UK business for British Family Publishers (part of Time Inc.), the magazine circulation agency.
In 2004 he joined Wegener DM in the role of Commercial Director, where he was responsible for their lifestyle and education sales divisions. He launched Fast-Tracker, the first product in the UK to take a consumer’s response to a lifestyle questionnaire and deliver it to a client within 24 hours, increasing response rates by up to 1000%.
Jane Byrne, Thomson Local
Jane is the Database Product Manager at Thomson Local, one of several roles she’s held with the company during the 7 years she’s been with them. Jane has over 15 years direct marketing experience – starting straight out of university as a DM Executive for Which? Magazine and then as a Marketing Manager for the publisher CCH/Croner. Jane has spent the last few years heavily involved in the digital arena, and specifically email marketing, developing and leading the email marketing business within Thomson Local. In addition to her practical experience, in 2006 Jane also studied for and achieved the IDM Digital Diploma.
Jane was voted onto the Email Marketing Council in 2006 and her main objective continues to be to promote better understanding of email marketing as a channel particularly within the B2B environment. Jane is a member of the Best Practice Hub within the Email Marketing Council.
Chris Combemale, EmailVision
Chris Combemale is the Chief Operating Officer and UK Managing Director of E-Mail Vision, a pan-European email marketing technology and service provider with offices in London, Paris, Hamburg, Munich and Brussels.
Chris established the UK office in August 2000 and works with clients and agencies in developing innovative edirect marketing solutions. EMV UK has over 350 active clients ranging from large corporate to mid-size companies. In February 2003 he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of the group and has spent much of his time since then developing business in France, Germany and Belgium. This gives Chris a unique Europe-wide perspective on industry developments.
Chris is a dual French/US citizen with 25+ years direct marketing, advertising, and on-line marketing experience in Europe, the US and Asia/Pacific. His 12 years with Young & Rubicam included founding the Wunderman direct-marketing office in Singapore in 1992 and managing the Wunderman office in Hong Kong. Chris returned to Europe in 1994 as European Direct Marketing Director for Franklin Mint and created his own on-line catalogue company (Living Heritage) in 1998.
In addition to building E-Mail Vision’s business Chris has taken a lead in industry level issues concerning legislation, best practice and education. He is currently Chairman of the DMA Email Marketing Council and a member of the Executive & Finance Committee. He co-founded eMMa (Email Marketing Association) in 2001 and successfully led the merger of eMMa with the DMA in November 2002.
Chris is also a frequent lecturer on IDM courses and other industry events.
Denise Cox, Newsweaver
Denise Cox is Newsweaver's Email Specialist. Newsweaver is a leading European email newsletter specialist and service provider, giving customers the email software and tools required to create emails that deliver results. Denise has extensive knowledge in email from best practice and marketing know-how to content. In 1996 she formed her own email marketing agency. In 2000 she joined forces with Newsweaver. Since then Denise has been providing practical consultancy and best practice guidance to the Newsweaver's clients, enabling them to maximise their investment in email.
Denise writes the email newsletter, "The Business of Email"- which has been publishing for over ten years. She also has an award-winning blog, "... email matters!", and is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars, as well as conducting email marketing workshops throughout Europe. Denise also contributes to a wide variety of publications around the world.
She recently joined the DMA’s Email Marketing Council as a co-opted member. Denise also serves on the Partnership Hub of the Council, which has a remit to create partnerships with other relevant industry bodies throughout the USA/EMEA and APAC regions.
Fiona Cuthbert, EuroDirect Database Marketing Ltd
Fiona has had around 14 years combined experience of DM and Digital, supplying data & analysis across multiple channels. Since joining the Email Council, her main focus has been to provide input into Best Practice and particularly the effective & legitimate use of data. Going forward Fiona's aim is to continue to promote the better understanding of this channel, how it can work with other direct channels and demonstrate the benefits of targeting and insight on campaign performance.
Jennifer Curtin, Newsweaver
Jennifer is Head of Marketing at Newsweaver and has over ten years marketing experience across a variety of industry sectors. Her experience is largely in business-to-business marketing and includes branding, advertising, public relations, direct marketing and internet marketing. Her roles have combined all areas of marketing from strategic marketing planning, marketing management through to hands on campaign delivery. Jennifer is currently a member of the Events and Communications Hub of the Email Marketing Council.
Richard Gibson, RSA Direct
Richard is Commercial Director of RSA Direct, he is also a long standing Email Marketing Council member having been elected twice to the council, originally joining as a co-opted member in 2003. Prior to which he served on the Business-to-Business board elected committee between 2001 and 2003.
Since 2004 he has Chaired the Benchmarking Hub which continues to deliver The National Email Marketing Benchmark on a quarterly basis along with the annual client survey which has become an important source of information for DMA members.
He also worked with IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) to organise the first ever joint evening event between the two trade bodies; ‘Email Marketing: Art or Science’ held at The Rex Cinema in February 2007.
He has regularly contributed to trade press articles, blogs and a book on the topic of Email Marketing and has chaired and spoken at UK DMA events as well as presenting DMA research in several European countries. In 2005 he was voted by B2B Marketing Magazine as one of the top twenty opinion formers in the UK.
Kath Pay, Ezemail
Kath Pay founded Ezemail, a global Email Service Provider, in 2001. She is Managing Director of both their UK and Australian entities. She's an Aussie but has been living in England since 2004 when she came over to set up the UK entity of Ezemail. With having over 7 years experience in the Email Marketing Industry she has seen many changes and has participated in the evolvement of email marketing so that it is now, not just an accepted channel for marketing, but a necessary channel for integrated online marketing which delivers excellent ROI.
Kath is a member of the UK DMA's Email Marketing Council and sits on the Events and Communications Hub. As part of her remit for this hub, she is editor of the council's monthly newsletter Infobox, as well as assisting with setting up and managing this blog.
Kath also regularly publishes articles as well as blogging on Be Relevant! - a leading email marketing blog and Ezemail's company blog as well as managing its newsletter, EzeNews.. In addition to all of the above she has also spoken at and chaired conferences and seminars including the IDMF and DMA Email Marketing Conferences.
Tink Taylor, dotMailer
Tink is a founding director of dotMailer. Launched in 2001, the dotMailer email marketing platform was designed to offer the power of the highest-end email marketing systems with a more user-friendly and intuitive front end.
As well as an ESP, dotMailer is a full-service online marketing agency, offering everything from email marketing to creative graphical design, content management and bespoke technical development.
Tink has extensive experience in introducing the concepts of email marketing to companies new to the field, as well as in servicing major brands such as the BBC, Shell, HP and WaterAid.
Tink joined the DMA’s Email Marketing Council as a co-opted member in 2006 whilst working with on the email deliverability hub and providing the benchmarking hub with an on-line survey solution (formBuilder).
He was officially elected as a full member to serve a 3 year term in 2007 and is currently promoting the DMA's email best practise guidelines as part of the partnership hub, with a remit of creating links with other industry bodies in the USA, UK and Europe.
Tink also sits on the Internet Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Email Marketing Council. The IAB has announced that it will endorse the DMA’s, Best Practice Guidelines, which aim to raise industry standards and stimulate the positive development of email as an effective and respected marketing channel.
Sara Watts, Data, Media & Research Ltd
Following graduation from University, Sara Watts began her Direct Marketing career in the motor industry, which soon led to her joining Carsource Ltd, the UK’s first online car portal, as Marketing Manager in 1995.
Over the last 10 years, Sara has played an integral role in the growth and development of Carsource Ltd. Following Sara’s launch of the Data side of the business, which she still heads up, Carsource Ltd became Data, Media & Retail Ltd.
Sara’s recent completion of an MBA has led to her belief that data capture and email marketing should work for both the client and end user alike. This has fuelled the Company’s recent move into Market Research to ensure that research, together with technology and common sense, are used to maximise the benefits of direct marketing for all parties involved.
Now trading as Data, Media & Research Ltd, Carsource Ltd has gone from strength to strength under Sara’s influence and was acquired by the Daily Mail and General Trust Group in January 2006.
Sara’s role has developed into that of Managing Director of the Data Division, responsible for corporate, consumer and business affairs; the operational management of all data; and specialises in targeted lead generation along with highly responsive bespoke list building.
Sara sits on the DMA Email Marketing Council and Best Practice & Data Hub, and is a member of the Market Research Society.
Liz Woodbridge, Mardev
Liz Woodbridge has worked for Mardev for 11 years as a data consultant and has over 20 years experience in B2B marketing. For 10 years Liz has been responsible for driving sales of Mardev’s data and associated services into the Technology sector, working with clients such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Novell.
Liz began her career selling advertising in B2B publications such as Laboratory Equipment Digest and Electronics Times. In 1993 she made the move into the world of direct marketing and this has been her focus for the last 15 years.
Liz is a member of the DMA’s Email Council and also sits on the Email Council’s Best Practice hub. Her current focus is to promote the use of best practice in B2B email marketing.
