About Me

I have more than ten years experience as a Radio Presenter, News Editor and Journalist, most recently presenting the breakfast show and news bulletins on Heart in Oxfordshire. It means I can blend formal and informal information in a seam-free, engaging manner. In my demo, you will hear a mixture of relatable lifestyle content, interviews and news.

I am adaptable and enjoy communicating and working with people at all levels. I regularly interview audience members, contributors, politicians and celebrities. I research them, listen carefully to what they say, understand, empathise and ask relevant questions to get the best out of them and deliver unique content.

My recent interview with Westlife has become the most viewed Orion media group video. I have also interviewed the likes of David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Rod Stewart, Noel Edmonds and Kirsty Allsopp. When X factor 2010 started, I built a relationship with the family of X Factor’s Cher Lloyd leading to exclusive interviews with her mum, sisters and nan.

One of my biggest strengths is creativity. In my roles, I have consistently delivered original ideas every day and enjoyed bringing them to life. I always utilise online resources. I launched and regularly updated pages on social networking sites and helped manage the official Heart website. I also created photo galleries, videos, blogs, and podcasts.

I have never missed a deadline as I work well under pressure, am organised and understand how to prioritise. In one role, I produced and presented ten news bulletins an hour. In another, I was responsible for selecting and sending national stories to stations up and down the country.

Thank you for looking through my profile and I hope to hear from you soon.

Presenting

Experience

Specialist Areas

Employment History & Experience

Job Title: Freelance Radio Presenter/Journalist.
Dates: July 2010-Present

Responsibilities: Presenting shows or reporting.

Achievements: Launching a new Sunday show on Banbury Sound; interview with Westlife which became the most viewed Orion group video; building a relationship with the family of X Factor’s Cher Lloyd leading to exclusive interviews with her mum and sisters.

Station: Heart (Oxfordshire). Global Radio.
Show: Heart Breakfast with Matt and Giselle
Job Title: Breakfast Show Presenter
Dates: April 2008-July 2010

Responsibilities: Hosting a popular breakfast show in a competitive market. Blending relatable lifestyle content with news and travel.

Other Duties: Ideas for talk topics; selecting content for the show and promotions; planning; diarising upcoming events; research; writing, compiling and presenting news and travel; reading to time; keeping the programme running to schedule; booking and interviewing celebrities, other guests and listeners; editing audio; finding new ways to interact with listeners; updating the online breakfast pages; podcasts; videos.

Achievements: Reach grew from 102,000-110,000, hours from 331,000-402,000 a week and share from 9.20-11.10%; the launch of Heart (when it changed from Fox FM) and the Have a Heart charity appeal (this included interviews with seriously ill children undergoing treatment at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital and promoting the charity’s Dress Red Day; hosting major outdoor events including the Pink Ribbonwalk at Blenheim Palace with Penny Lancaster and Denise Lewis, Race For Life and the 80’s Rewind Festival (30,000 crowd); promoting the station to win publicity on the TV and in newspapers and magazines; creating and regularly updating the Heart Oxfordshire Facebook and Twitter pages; writing a blog (the third most viewed Breakfast Show page across the company when latest internet figures were released).

Station: Fox FM & Capital Disney. GCap-Global.
Job Title: News Editor
Dates: June 2006-April 2008

Responsibilities: Leading a team of four journalists, delivering unique news bulletins and a 15 minute news programme.
Other duties: Recruitment; weekly coaching; maintaining the budget; rotas; researching, writing, editing, compiling and presenting news bulletins that connect with the target audience; ensuring content is legally sound and consistent with brand standards; local online news that creates an interactive experience; improving online figures; networking; developing contacts.

Achievements: Creating a News Style Guide; the implementation of missing child and school closure procedures; the station being chosen by Oxfordshire County Council as the 1st voice of information for the 2007 floods after I decided to run extra bulletins. The Lord Mayor of Oxford gave me a commendation for our coverage.

Station: Beacon Radio West Midlands; Beacon Radio Shropshire; Wyvern FM; Classic Gold WABC. GWR-GCap.
Job Title: Senior Journalist-News Editor
Dates: Sept 2002-June 2006

Responsibilities: Leading a team of eight journalists at three sites, delivering unique bulletins and news programmes.

Achievements: Being selected for the company’s UK News Desk, writing and editing stories for journalists throughout the company and texting breaking news to listeners; writing and presenting bulletins for the national charity appeal Radio Aid; launching 10 minute news programmes.

Station: Signal 1 & Big AM. The Wireless Group.
Job Title: Broadcast Journalist
Dates: May 2000-Sept 2002

Achievements: Selected to write and present bulletins to stations across the group on 9/11.

Station: Wish FM
Job Title: Broadcast Journalist
Dates: June 1997-May 2000

Company: Butlins
Job Title: Redcoat
Dates: Summer 1996

Other Experience: Banbury Sound; Oxfam; BBC Herefordshire and Worcestershire; Bracknell News; Reading Evening Post; 2-Ten FM; Mike Tyson Films.

Entertainment

Languages Spoken

Other Information

Relevant Skills

Presenting; reporting; investigating; ideas for unique content; finding contributors, writing biogs and scripts; researching, booking, interviewing and developing relationships with celebrities and other guests; editing; working to deadlines; selecting the strongest content for programmes and promotions; delivering unique teases, stories and output; updating websites; blogs; vlogs.