If you’ve visited Write, Abigail probably welcomed you. Receptionist is her most public role, but it’s just one of many.

If you do one of Write’s online courses, she’ll be involved in the background. She wrangles the wealth of resources that our trainers take to client workshops, and arranges catering for the workshops that happen at our place. And she performs a hundred admin tasks — as she says, ‘all the little bits and pieces that help to make everyone’s life easier’.

Abigail is fascinated by words, so she feels at home here at Write. She has a degree in English literature, and always has two books on the go — a novel, and a book of word puzzles.

Angie has been training people to write clearly for many years. She’s adept at tailoring workshops to meet an organisation’s unique training needs.

In workshops, Angie connects with each participant’s style and strengths, so they can learn quickly. Participants often say that writing in plain language is easier than they thought.

Angie delights in ending the frustration and waste caused by poor business communication. And she loves coaching people in presentation skills, so they can present confidently to groups.

Outside work, Angie is a devoted parent to three sons and enjoys her large music collection.

Anne-Marie uses her sharp eye for quality and business effectiveness to ensure organisations experience all the benefits of clear communication.

She works at a strategic level on culture-change projects using Write’s Rewrite for Change™ Model. She delights in seeing organisations use the Model to achieve measurable and lasting results. And she applies the same thinking to her work inside Write.

Anne-Marie is an advocate for clarity in government and business, so people can make important financial, health, and legal decisions. She helped develop the WriteMark document quality mark, which supports fair customer relationships.

She’s also an active member of the international plain language community and presents at conferences here and overseas.

Outside work, Anne-Marie is a walker, writer, and reader of contemporary fiction.

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In every aspect of Claire’s wide-ranging career, she has witnessed the power of plain language. She’s our Auckland-based trainer, coach, and facilitator. She earned both her degree and MBA there too.

Claire helps clients to work out what they know and what they need. Then she builds on their existing knowledge and skills so they can increase the value of their work as soon as they return to their desks.

Claire has seen plain language transform organisational culture in fields as diverse as business, healthcare, and education. She has coached businesses on using plain language to say what they mean, do what they say, and build trust and integrity in their brands. In a hospital where patients spoke 87 different languages, she saw plain language reduce barriers to vital services. Surprising fact: Claire’s an occasional DJ. Unsurprising fact: she does voluntary work, coaching people running start-ups and social enterprises.

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Colleen leads Write’s team of trainers, inspiring them as they create workshops for a diverse range of training needs. Colleen believes in delivering training that transforms the way workshop participants think about their writing. Their changed attitude translates into documents that are clear and purposeful.

Colleen enjoys seeing participants write more effectively by the end of a workshop — and hearing that they really enjoyed themselves as they learned.

She also specialises in individual coaching, and in working with people who are non-native English speakers.

Outside work, Colleen is a busy mum, a jazz singer, and a seasoned traveller.

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Corinna’s specialty is quality. She’s an expert document auditor, quality assessor, editor, and proofreader.

Corinna brings consistency to a piece of writing or a group of documents. What works best for your readers is always her focus.

Because of her many years of experience, her editing and proofreading are ‘next level’. She’ll ensure your documents are professional, polished, and error-free.

Outside work, Corinna is a ballet mum and avid reader.

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Diana’s specialty is persuasive writing — how to create proposals, business cases, and bids that give you a competitive edge. If you’re an executive, Diana can coach you in presentation skills, so you’re prepared for a high-stakes presentation.

Diana also plays a key part in the discovery and training phases of our culture change programmes. She develops and delivers bespoke workshops. Participants love the energy, warmth, and extensive knowledge she brings to their learning experience.

Out of hours, Diana loves all things Spanish and is a fluent Spanish speaker.

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Eleanor leads Write’s team of documents consultants, inspiring them to provide excellent consultancy services for our clients. Eleanor manages large document projects with ease and charm, for the best possible results.

As a plain language consultant, she is expert at explaining the complex in simple language while losing none of the important messages. She has a knack for getting the tone just right. Clients praise the way her work helps them connect with their customers.

Eleanor gives feedback to help people write more effectively, and creates writing resources that are easy to pick up and use on the job. Her coaching style is empathetic and highly effective.

Outside work, Eleanor loves cycling adventures. She won the Whitcoulls Travel Book of the Year award for her book ‘Llamas and Empanadas’.

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Emily is an outstanding technical communicator and wrangler of online documentation. Give her complex, poorly organised material and she’ll transform it into clear and useful information that works for your organisation.

With her expertise in systems and software, she can also take care of your long-term document management needs. She is our lead consultant for training and strategy with MadCap Flare (a leading single-sourcing authoring tool).

Emily has worked in industry, technology, and the government sector. She has a Master’s degree in scientific and technical communication.

Her personal writing interests shift among style blogging, travel writing, and short fiction.

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If we’re doing a writing project for you, Erica’s all over it. She wrangles Write’s document consultants, and liaises with our customer relationship managers. She makes sure that your work’s in the hands of the best people for the job, it’s on schedule, and everyone’s happy.

It’s a complex task — easily the equal of her past work as a production assistant in film. Erica’s comfortable about moving from the world of pictures to plain words. Although she hadn’t heard of the plain language movement before she came to Write, she was drawn to plain writing throughout her academic career.

After work, you’ll find Erica at the movies or theatre, or pottering in the garden. She hopes to return to sculpting — a life-long love. When she first came out from England, she made models for The Hobbit, including Rivendell Bridge.

Inez thrives on making writing as clear as possible. She’s a whiz at capturing the essence of a message and expressing it concisely. Much of her consulting work is part of large-scale web projects — she’ll wrangle your content and make it findable and usable.

Inez is versatile and draws from her experience in journalism, radio, editing, and public relations.

Inez also provides insightful coaching in many aspects of writing, and delivers our Web Lab for a diverse range of clients.

Outside work, Inez dotes on her son, is an eclectic cook, and practises mindfulness.

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James’s consultancy has helped his clients win contracts for business worth millions of dollars. He is a skilled strategist, working with clients to write bids and tenders that put them ahead of the competition.

James specialises in making the complex clear, with structure and wording that achieves business objectives. He also develops workshops and online training to help people hone their thinking and writing skills.

Out of hours, James is a doting dad and loves to explore cycle trails.

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Participants in our writing workshops benefit from Jayne’s mastery of both writing and training.

Jayne is an experienced educator and trainer with a broad background in communication, journalism, public relations, linguistics, and psychology. She’s also spent many years as a plain language expert, assessing documents and advising writers how to communicate complex topics clearly and precisely.

Outside work, Jayne likes arts, culture, and time with her family.

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As practice manager, Jonathan is the operational backbone of Write and responsible for the seamless daily running of our offices.

Jonathan’s prime focus is customer service — for Write’s clients, and his Write colleagues. He manages the logistics and admin team, including our project coordinators.

Acute business awareness and first-class communication skills are his hallmarks. And his wide-ranging role within Write occasionally allows the creative space for him to work on client projects too. He loves document design, and you’ll spot him in a starring role in some of our videos.

Jonathan is a music graduate, with a large space at home occupied by a grand piano. A keen chef too, at the end of the day he often reaches for the saucepan — Italian dishes are his favourite.

Jordan believes in the power of plain language to remove barriers and make things simple.

After a long time overseas, he’s enjoying the friendliness of Wellington. It’s a quality he brings to his relationship with Write’s customers. He loves problem
solving, and enabling customers and their teams to develop transformative skills.

When he’s not working, Jordan’s likely to be playing music or composing. Most genres strike a chord with him, whether he’s on guitar, drums, piano, or synthesiser.

Josh has the billion dollar touch. A former bid-writer, he’s written successful proposals for contracts worth eight figures in the UK and New Zealand.

Josh understands the commercial value of plain language and its power to persuade. He’s a pragmatic perfectionist. He’ll make a piece of writing the best it can be — meeting or exceeding the brief, within the constraints of deadline and budget.

A fairly recent migrant, Josh wishes he’d come to New Zealand years ago. He’s making up for lost time, immersing himself in local culture and the Kiwi outdoors.

Karen specialises in communications training and coaching. She puts her extensive experience as a language adviser to work for a wide range of business and learning needs.

Karen is at ease with clients from all levels of the public and private sectors. Whether she’s facilitating a bespoke workshop or working with individuals in a coaching session, the feedback is consistent — working with Karen delivers results.

Karen particularly enjoys helping lawyers transform their writing into clear reader-friendly text that retains the integrity of the original.

Karen also loves working with non-native speakers of English, including executive-level migrants. Under her expert guidance, migrants learn to write and speak effectively in the New Zealand business environment. They also gain skills that help with integration into New Zealand society.

In her own time, Karen loves wielding a paintbrush and travelling.

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Kathryn is at her best enabling people to articulate their ideas and intentions. As Write’s Innovation Manager, she has plenty of scope to inspire creative thinking and new approaches for both her colleagues and clients.

As a consultant, Kathryn’s goal is to help writers create content and communication that’s supremely clear, effective, and compelling. She considers writing to be a strategic act to fulfil a clear goal.

Kathryn consults with clients across the public and private sectors. She has expertise in delivering effective, engaging training and coaching in person and on digital platforms. She builds quick rapport with the people she works with.

Kathryn’s experience in content strategy, UX research, and information architecture has proven for her that successful organisations strive to put the customer (and the reader) first.

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If money makes the world go round, Les keeps Write’s world turning. He manages our finances and accounting day to day. If you’ve received a payment or a bill from Write, Les has been involved.

Les has 40 years experience in accounting. He loves words as well as numbers, and values clarity in communication.

Les is owned by a Burmilla cat called Pharaoh. After hours, Les loves live entertainment — especially music. His tastes are diverse: jazz and blues, Americana country, folk, and classical for starters. He makes the most of the International Festival of the Arts too.

Lesley works with clients in many sectors, writing, editing, and reviewing content to make sure it works for its readers. She uses her background in editing and user experience to create web content that is easy to find, understand, and act on.

Lesley also has a hand in culture change projects, auditing documents against Write’s Plain Language Standard, and creating resources to help writers meet the Standard.

After hours, Lesley enjoys the great outdoors, meditation, and yoga.

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D’you know the character from The Incredibles, Elastigirl? Well, that’s our Libby, bouncing from one task to another, helping out behind the scenes.

She writes for clients, coordinates projects, and gives administration support with equal charm, willingness, and competence.

Recently Libby added to her already extensive task list. She’s now one of our project coordinators for documents projects and also helps the rest of the logistics team when workloads are high or people are on leave.

Libby originally came to us for a study-related internship, part of her degree in communications. We were impressed by her research paper. To cut a long story short, she’s continuing as part of our consultant team, learning more about our work and contributing to projects. She also has her own special project soon to be published as a white paper.

When Libby isn’t studying or working, she writes short fiction, and dances to anything Latin.

Under Lynda’s visionary leadership, Write has become the largest plain language consultancy in the world. Lynda inspires everyone at Write to deliver the benefits of plain language to clients — greater efficiency and productivity, less risk, lower costs, and better relationships with customers.

She’s developed research-based standards and models that countless organisations have used to their advantage. Lynda’s latest creation is the Rewrite for Change™ Model — a master plan for implementing and sustaining a plain language culture in any organisation.

Lynda is a respected member of the international plain language community. In 2015, her peers awarded her the prestigious Christine Mowat Plain Language Achievement Award.

Outside work, Lynda enjoys her extended family and travelling.

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Melissa specialises in conveying complex issues to broad audiences with clarity. Your readers will benefit from her background in communications and marketing, journalism, and commercial broadcasting.

Her writing creates a sense of connection and ease that encourages readers to read. When what they find is crystal clear, it’s easy for them to absorb and act on.

Melissa also gives expert feedback to help writers and organisations meet their goals.

Outside work, Melissa is busy with her children and lends her comms expertise to non-profits.

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Meredith provides expert consultancy, tailoring Write’s services to projects of all kinds. Clients consider her a safe pair of hands. Auckland-based, she works for organisations throughout New Zealand.

Meredith often works on complex, sensitive projects, and multi-part, multi-author projects. She is a seasoned project manager, and a specialist technical writer, editor, proofreader, researcher, and indexer. She is meticulous and fast.

Meredith holds an MA (Hons), and is also an accredited editor with the Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd).

Meredith draws from her experience in diverse fields — including historical research, biosecurity, law, energy, incident management, and geospatial technology.

Out of the office, Meredith is keen on puzzles, and reading about and researching military, defence, security, and intelligence topics.

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Nicola is a talented juggler who has spun a lot of plates at Write since 2000.

Throughout she has helped run the WriteMark Plain English Awards, as part of Write’s sponsorship.

Nicola does vital ‘back office’ work and has heaps of valuable organisational knowledge. She’s the go-to for all kinds of information. She’s generous with her time and help, and communicates with crystal clarity and great charm.

Back in the day, Nicola welcomed people as our receptionist, was PA to our chief executive, and managed the Write website, our office, and accounts. She’s just as busy now, with a young family and a shorter Write to-do list.

Paul is a strategic thinker, who gets to the heart of your business need and finds a solution that fits. He’s driven to make sure you get a tangible return on your investment in plain language.

Paul has led and worked with senior and frontline staff in many industries and sectors, so he understands the challenges businesses face.

After hours, Paul enjoys spending time with his three boys, and going fishing and diving.

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For Penny, plain language is about fostering trust and reaping its benefits. 'When an organisation communicates with clarity, its customers can feel a sense of trust, because they're hearing a language they understand.'

That trust reaps measurable commercial benefits, she says — a better bottom line, better customer relations, and a better reputation.

People need accessible information to take part in democracy, Penny says. She’s excited about working towards this greater purpose by providing tailored plain English services.

Penny is back in New Zealand after a huge motorcycle tour of Russia and Europe and a spell in London. Outside office hours, she loves camping, Scrabble, and shopping for vintage clothes.

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Phillip runs our leading edge IT systems. He keeps your data safe and confidential, and enables us to work on your projects anywhere.

If a disaster happened, he’d ensure that your data was safe so our work could continue. And when inevitable day-to-day little glitches pop up, he fixes them fast or empowers us with tools and tricks. He keeps us productive, minimising downtime. And we appreciate his endless politeness and patience.

So he’s our own technology ninja — and a bit of a real ninja too. Phillip has studied martial arts since childhood. In keeping with that theme, he tantalises us with the aroma of his home-made Asian lunches.

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Reece is the logistical maestro who makes sure our training workshops run smoothly. He’s also a key contact for learning and development managers, linking them to the right people and information for their needs.

Reece handles bookings, coordinates training materials, and arranges travel.

Reece also has an arts degree in media studies. So he understands the power of clear communication — how it helps organisations shape their messages and reach their audiences.

Out of the office, Reece loves movies and music. Occasionally he picks up his own guitar.

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When Rijula wrote her doctoral thesis on creative writing, she chose plain English, not academic language. She wanted to make her topic accessible. Her professors praised it.

In the training room, Rijula honours people’s expertise. She offers solutions from her own expertise, and facilitates sharing of participants’ knowledge too.
Rijula considers that the same questions drive every writer — whether they’re writing a novel, a policy document, a report, or an email. Who is my audience? What is my purpose? My key message? Answers will differ, but the questions are the same, she says.

At home, Rijula always has a creative writing project on the go. Her first book is due out soon.

Sam is a star trainer and writer with two goals in mind: confident writers and purposeful documents.

She is a qualified and experienced adult educator, with a PhD in English. She takes care to understand her training clients’ thinking. She finds out what they need, then builds on their knowledge.

A skilled writer and published author, Sam has an analytical eye. Whether editing, reviewing, or writing, she creates effective documents that are easy to understand.

Sam believes that plain language is ethical language. It’s at the heart of a fair society, she says. ‘Everyone has the right to documents they can understand about the things that affect them, from laws and rules to contracts and advertising.’

Outside work, Sam cares for a Noah’s Ark of pets and writes poetry, fiction, and historical non-fiction.

When writing, reviewing, and editing, Sam’s expertise is evident. He loves unpicking complexity and replacing it with prose that’s clear and simple. He crafts web content that’s easy to act on. And he enjoys collaborative projects, especially where stakeholders have different needs. Sam skilfully finds common ground to move a project forward.

Out of hours, movies are Sam’s passion, whether he’s watching them, making them, or writing them. Don’t ask him for a favourite — that changes day to day. He’s always looking for something new and interesting to watch.

Sarah takes great satisfaction from seeing businesses add dollars to their bottom line by working smarter, building their brand, and improving productivity.

She gets to know your business and your goals, and then matches you with the best service and talent for the results you need.

She stays in touch with you throughout your project, ensuring the measurable benefits of clear communication fall into place.

Outside work, Sarah nurtures her boys and enjoys conversation, beaches, and the arts.

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Simon helps people discover that they can write clearly and persuasively — his favourite feedback comment is ‘Surprisingly useful’. Based in Auckland, he creates bespoke workshops that show people how to get their message across effectively.

Simon’s background is in business-to-business communication. He’s worked with law firms, financial services companies, and a range of professional services clients. His copywriting work includes websites, speeches, articles, and pitches. In his earlier career he was a graphic designer and creative director.

Outside work, Simon’s young family keeps him busy, as does a so-far-fruitless quest to play a song all the way through on the guitar.