Edward brings over 40 years’ commercial experience at a senior level in academic publishing to his role as Chair of the Commonwork Trust. He became a Director of Blackwell Science in 1999 while his most recent position was as Vice-President and Director, Global Journal Content Management, at John Wiley & Sons, where he was responsible for the production (in print and online) of over 1600 learned journals across all the major academic disciplines, a budget of approximately $60m and over 100 members of staff, located worldwide.
Amongst other duties at Wiley, he specialized in copyright and intellectual property law, and chaired the global committee responsible for publication ethics. Having managed large teams in a number of jurisdictions across the world, he also brings his extensive understanding of contract and employment law to his role as Chair of the Trust.
In addition to his commercial experience, he has had extensive involvement in the charitable sector. During his time in publishing, he served on a number of industry bodies, including latterly as a Board member and Treasurer of ORCiD, a US-based non-profit focused on disambiguation of the scholarly record and researcher workflows.
He also served as Treasurer for The Listening Centre, a low-cost counselling service based in an area of high social deprivation in Oxford, from 2008 to 2015.
Edward has a separate career as a calligrapher and lettering artist, whose work is widely exhibited and is held in public collections in the UK, Pakistan, Germany and the US. He is currently Chair of the Irene Wellington Trust, an educational charity focused on education in the Lettering Arts.
In 2019, he was elected a Trustee of the Crafts Study Centre, based at the University of the Creative Arts at Farnham and one of the UK’s major locations for the preservation and study of craft.