Stephen Mctaggart Email and Phone Number

Leyton is an international consulting firm that helps businesses leverage financial incentives to accelerate their growth and achieve long-lasting performance.

My role involved successfully launching and commercialising DC Thomson 's news platform Sustainable Growth Voice. Additionally leading our team on strategic partnership collaborations, to enable the positioning of the new site as a recognised platform for sustainable news. That involved working with clients and our editors to create effective content for our site and position clients’ comments within the sustainability news landscape. Part of this involed launching a podcast. As a new vertical within the wider DC Thomson group, I was also involved in branding and marketing discussions.

In this role, I lead on strategic partnering activities with higher-level organisations, where I cultivate and generate new business alliances as well as nurture and maximise value within existing relationships. I am renowned for identifying opportunities that benefit the organisation across platforms outside of the traditional media landscape as well as shaping future editorial ideas that can be commercialised to drive business capability/financial performance.I am responsible for monitoring and innovating editorial projects to grow strategic and long-term opportunities with multiple partners. I currently manage Business, Commercial and Residential Property teams, with a focus on value-based decision-making to enhance performance. I account for the financial performance of my teams, which involves accurately forecasting and reporting on weekly and monthly sales figures and closely monitoring product profit and loss while continually identifying and incorporating areas of improvement to increase monthly and yearly forecast revenues. I also attend regular management meetings and define team targets.

In this role, I fostered commercial partnerships across key growth sectors, including the Renewables market, Environmental, Energy, Ports and Harbours, Fishing and Aquaculture, Construction, Forestry, Energy, STEM, FinTech and Finance and Legal Service. I developed and delivered sponsorship/funding and commercial revenue streams by identifying, networking and building relationships with key partners at business meetings and events. A key part of my role was arranging interviews with the correct editors, managing and allocating the distribution of content across the Herald’s 23 titles, online and social channels.In 2018, I successfully launched Scotland’s largest circulated business magazine (Business HQ) and continued to provide product planning, editorial content, design, P&L and planning for the magazine throughout. I collaborated with a wide range of bodies including government, private corporations and 3rd sector organisations to ensure each edition of the Business HQ contained novel, engaging and relevant content.In the same year, I also initiated and launched the Climate Change project in partnership with the Scottish Government. The platform supports efforts by the Scottish Government with key organisations to facilitate behavioural change to ensure net zero targets are being met. It received commendation in the Scottish Parliament for bridging relationships between government, public and private sector firms and is now published Monday to Saturday in The Herald, available online on Heraldscotland.com, and also included editorially in the Business HQ Magazine. The project has generated in excess of £1 Million of commercial support to date.

I worked for UK’s largest golf publishing company which has published The Golf Union's affiliated publications for over 10 years, along with titles such as Bunkered Golf Magazine and No1 Magazine. I was responsible for producing Visit Scotland, tourist publications Official Guide To Golf, Fishing in Scotland, Walking in Scotland and the Active in Scotland guide. I excelled in this sales role, where I achieved Sales Person of the Year for 2011 (115%) and 2012 (121%); Sales Person of the 1st Quarter 2013 (116%); and Sales Person of the 2nd Quarter 2013 (114%). I was rewarded with being made a Senior Employee within the company for Club Golfer.

In this role, I was responsible for leading targeted sales campaigns across different levels of size and industry. I regularly reviewed the competition and aligned sales activities where required. I successfully generated new business and ensured the delivery of best customer service to encourage positive reviews and recommendations.I took the time to understand key business requirements and established cost-effective mechanisms for clients to receive their desired levels of return. This involved reducing business cost exposure or increasing spend to meet client expectations.Due to my exceptional performance with SMEs, I was promoted to develop business with larger firms and specific sectors to ensure continual success. I retained a Year on Year average of 120+%.

Duotool Ltd is one of the UK's leading fixing and fastening companies, providing stock direct to clients nationally within the trade sector.Working my way to a Sales Manager of an office in Glasgow, running a sales team to ensure company targets were reached, while still generating predominantly new business and account managing my office's client base.