About Our Trainers

All the trainers who work for Verve are professional writers and journalists who work in the national media today. We find this a particularly effective background because the basic principles of good journalism – learning how to construct a clear and concise narrative from an often complex story - are invaluable in helping delegates develop effective business writing skills. We also have specialist trainers with expertise in scientific, technical and financial writing.


Liz Tucker
Liz is an award winning journalist and TV producer, who won one of the top writing prizes, the Glaxo, in the UK in 2002 for her script writing, and was then short listed for the same prize the following year. She has extensive experience writing for print, the web, radio and television. Liz has scripted a wide range of science, history and contemporary documentary programmes, which have been broadcast on the BBC, Channel 4 and a number of the major US networks. On the iconic show, Tomorrow’s World, her film about Trevor Baylis, inventor of the clockwork radio, brought about its worldwide launch. Her programmes have been shown in over 40 countries and have won a number of awards including a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society prize. Liz is a guest lecturer for Imperial College, University of London’s Communication department.  She is a member of BAFTA and is on the board of Women in Film and TV. Liz is also managing director of Verve Training’s sister company Verve Productions.


 

Chris Riley
Chris is a science writer, broadcaster and presenter. He is the author of the best seller Apollo 11 Manual. Chris was an early pioneer of web journalism, first reporting for the BBC's news online service in the mid 1990s. He has worked as a columnist on The Independent and written for numerous publications including the New Scientist and Focus magazine. He has also authored a range of books, covering everything from technical guides to popular science texts. Chris recently worked as a producer on the award winning cinema film Shadow in the Moon, which won the audience prize at Sundance. In addition, he is an examiner for the  Imperial College Communication department and a senior visiting research fellow at the University of Lincoln. 




Robert McKenzie
Financial Journalist Robert McKenzie is accustomed to communicating and writing about complex business and economic issues as he has been making programmes about them for nearly two decades. He has been Editor of 5Live Business Programmes, Radio Daily Business Programmes and is currently Editor of Business Daily, BBC World Service. In these roles, he has created and scripted much of BBC Radio's current business output. He has also produced and written the award winning BBC2 series Your Money or Your Life. His particular fascination with the use of language in business  has led to him making programmes about body language, management jargon and the surprising importance of job titles. If you would like to hear any of these programmes, they can be listened to by clicking on the links below: 

Mind Your Language  examining the growth in the use of management jargon. 

What's in a name? The curious phenomenon of job title inflation.

Body Talk How should we interpret body language?



Matthew Barrett
Matthew Barrett is a consultant to the major American television company WGBH Boston and is Head of Factual Programmes for World Media Rights, a group set up by Andrew Neil, the former editor of The Sunday Times. He began his career writing for specialist financial magazines, covering complex financial stories. He then moved to the BBC, where he stayed for twenty years, working first in News and Current Affairs, where he specialised in economic issues. Later he worked in business programming, where he wrote and produced a series dymystifying the language and methods of management consultants. In recent years, he was editor of Horizon, where he was heavily involved in supervising and writing scripts to ensure they were both comprehensible and accurate. His awards include two Emmys and a BAFTA.

If you would like to know more about Verve Training and how we could help your company, please ring us on 020 8560 2056, email enquiries@vervetraining.org.uk or contact us