Chris Ratcliffe Email & Phone Number

Tutbury, England, Gb

London, England, Gb

London, England, Gb

New York, Ny, Us

Scholastic Education publishes resources, magazines and e-learning materials for primary and secondary schools. I have been at Scholastic for over ten years with varying responsibilities, currently the Sales Director for the Education division and a member of the Senior Management Team. My main areas of responsibility include:• Increasing market orientation - identifying market opportunities, competitor analysis etc.• Unified strategic direction - establishing a long-term sales strategy. Managing the distribution network; ensuring all sales channels are performing well; negotiating contracts; monitoring of stock; ensuring Scholastic is well represented at exhibitions; identifying gaps in publishing plan.• Managing a team - I currently have three direct reports, and am ultimately responsible for 20 staff. • Finance and resources - Creation of annual sales budgets and revising forecasts for Q1, Q2 and Q3. Plan financial and staff resources in order to carry out the publishing plan, and overheads are tightly controlled.• Contribution to the Senior Management Team.I am very proud of the work that I do at Scholastic, from a division that had no real sales outlet when I joined we now sell and distribute our resources to schools through as many channels as possible. The main highlights would be:• Setting up and maintaining a rep force.• Increasing revenue in a tough market through setting up new channels (third party distributors, sales reps, trade, emarketing, direct mail etc.)• Spearheading social networking through blogging, micro blogging, networking etc. I have presented on this subject to the IPG.• Running the marketing for the resource and magazines for 18-months as maternity cover.• Building a very strong presence at exhibitions, which has led to more business to business sales and press coverage.

All Ways Forward were a small transport company, specialising in Formula One forwarding. I worked as Operations Manager looking after the major clients (McLaren, Jordan, Ferrari etc.), ensuring that all of the freight arrived on time. This job was incredibly busy, often working from 7am to 7pm, and weekends to ensure that the job was done. At All Ways Forward, I studied and passed the National Certificate of Professional Competence for freight transport. My responsibilities included -• Management of drivers (numbering over 20)• Customer relations and sales • Transport of goods• Warehouse manager

Prim-Ed is an international publishing company specialising in products directed at primary schools and teachers. I worked as part of a two-person marketing team reporting to the Managing Director and Sales Director. My responsibilities included:Trade Sales . Organising ExhibitionsManaging a network of up to 30 UK representatives . Direct MailPublic Relations . Flyer DesignAdvertising . RecruitmentMy initial focus was to increase sales through mail order and retail outlets. Finding new and original ways of increasing sales through the trade was very challenging, however I achieved a sales increase of 43% in my first year.