Charles Orton-Jones
Business writer
RESUME
As a freelancer I've interviewed prime ministers from across the EU, the secretary-general of OPEC in Vienna, and conducted around 2,500 interviews.
Frequent commissions come from the Daily Telegraph comment section, The Marketer, Project magazine, and a variety of fintechs, banks, and startups, in the UK and Silicon Valley.
I write regularly for the Big Four and financial service providers, usually ghost writing thought leadership pieces for partners.
I'm pretty versatile, for example helping the French financial services company Ingenico create English language marketing materials for their Android payment terminal.
Cloud Native software is a passion of mine. I've covered microservices, containerisation with Kubernetes orchestration, and CI/CD.
I occasionally am asked to consult on the direction of magazines, and have put together pitches for contacts up for tenders, eg I wrote the pitch for CIMA's Financial Management magazine for Seven Publishing (we won).
Events, competitions, and research projects are regular requests. I won a PR Week Award for work with Cisco, and have run things such as the 50 to Watch in Mobile with O2, Future 50 for Real Business, and judged the CBI Growing Business Awards.
I have written white papers for the likes of Barclays and Blue Yonder, and consulted on brand changes for FTSE 100 companies.
I am always happy to talk about projects, no matter what you have in mind.
Freelance
Skills
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White papers
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Features
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Interviews
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In-depth research
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Economic analysis
Interests
I have a strong interest in philosophy, in particular epistemology and theories of truth such as Edmund Gettier's paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" and Karl Popper's concept of falsifiability.
Central planning in the Soviet Union is something I research, perhaps because it's so at odds with the entrepreneurial culture I work in.
I am a keen reader, and subscribe to The Spectator, New Scientist, Philosophy Now, and am a student of wine and memory skills. Fluent Italian, and frequent visitor to Florence and Rome.
Currently writing How to Learn.
Education
Trinity College Dublin - History, First Class hons
In 1999 I graduated from TCD in history, specialising in the Merovingian and Dark Ages, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Tudors. My dissertation was on William Cecil, Elizabeth I's secretary of state, and the architect of England's rise to greatness in the Sixteenth Century.
Oundle School, Northamptonshire
I went to boarding school in the county where I was born and raised. Always happy to hear from OOs - they seem to get around.