Meet the Prism Consult team

Robert Palmer

Managing Director and co-founder

Robert Palmer works on all sale and acquisition mandates. Before setting up Prism Consult in 1999 Robert had already owned and managed several successful businesses, publishing newspapers and magazines and advising publishing organisations on corporate strategy and product development. His client list included media giants Bertelsmann and Reed Elsevier. He has also run training courses on launching new magazines, brand extensions and publishing management for the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA). Robert began his career at advertising agencies Young & Rubican and Lintas, before a move client-side with marketing roles at General Foods, Sterling Health and Book Club Associates. A graduate of Bristol University, Robert has a masters degree in international management and a Sloan Fellowship from the London Business School.

David Westgarth

Director

David has twenty years’ experience with magazines, exhibitions, conferences and online information services. He is a former business development director at Emap Communications, where he was responsible for M&A and portfolio management. He was also a member of the investment committee and the Executive Board, working closely with the CEO and CFO. During his time at Emap, and in the face of digital developments, the company effected a strategic profit re-balancing (by acquisition and product development), from advertising to subscriptions and face-to-face fees. David has over 15 years’ experience of price and contract negotiation. He is a Cambridge graduate, and attended the London Business School under the aegis of Emap.

Advisory Board

Prism Consult advisory board members work with Robert and David on M&A and consulting projects.

John Sanderson

John Sanderson has long and wide experience in the creative sector. He was a leading leisure and media investment analyst for 10 years before becoming a director of Hydra, partly owned by the marketing and strategy consultancy SRU, focusing on business development in the electronic media sector. Clients included EMI, BSkyB and Channel 4. John has been principal of JFWS Ltd since 1999, where he combines advisory work with directorships and investment. In addition he advises on fundraising — he is registered with the FSA through Enterprise Corporate Finance; he consults as a director of Whetstone Group on new business development and projects — including currently the establishment of the V&A at Dundee; and he advises funds — currently the LDA’s Creative Capital Fund, the North East Creative Content Fund where the fundholder is Northern Film and Media, and the Big Issue Social Enterprise Investment Fund. He has been chairman of three AIM-listed companies in music administration, TV channels and digital technology support for business, and is currently a non-executive director of several businesses including Somethin’ Else Sound Directions (the top independent radio and digital production business), Audio Network (a library of music for film and TV) and Screen Digest (the international publisher of subscription services covering all the digital and screen-based markets). He has a degree in Modern Languages from Oxford University and a Certificate in Political Studies from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

Richard Flaye

Richard is the former CEO of Quantum Business Media, set up by him in 1989 following his purchase of The Publican trade newspaper from EMAP. Over the following twelve years Richard built the company into one of the UK´s principal B2B publishing groups, before selling to a management buy-out in 2001. He is a graduate of Oxford and Harvard Business School.

Ann Jamieson

Ann is a consultant to Aquent Price Jamieson, the recruitment firm she helped co-found in 1982. She spent the first ten years of her career working in publishing - mainly on business titles, including Management Today, Campaign and Computing, which she helped launch. In addition to recruitment and training for traditional media owners, Price Jamieson´s offering has since 1984 been extended to include interactive businesses.

David Garratt

Since leaving university David has spent his entire working life in the newspaper and magazine publishing industries. He started at International Thomson before joining magazine distribution company COMAG. There for twenty-two years, he spent the last sixteen as group managing director. In 1999 he received the ACE Lifetime Achiever Award.

Lyn Lavers

Lyn has spent twenty years in business-to-business publishing. From a background in advertising sales with the London Evening Standard and Haymarket Publishing she went on to become publishing director at Centaur and later managing director of EMAP´s business and computer magazine division, before joining International Thomson Business Publishing as managing director. Lyn is co-founder of Prism Consult.

John Chapman

John joined WH Smith Wholesale in 1962 aged fifteen, and progressed through the organisational ranks until taking early retirement as a senior manager in 2005. In the latter stages of his time there he was involved in the selection of new product and in advising new publishers on launches and how to effectively market their publications.