Profile: Roanna Avison

 

Roanna Avison
Content editor, Road Transport Group
roanna.avison@rbi.co.uk

In August 2008, Commercial Motor, Motor Transport and Roadtransport.com restructured to bring together a number of journalists into one content team writing for all three publications.

I joined this team as deputy content editor, managing the writers and co-ordinating their work with the requirements of the magazines and the website.

I'm still writing news stories and of course getting out to drive trucks whenever I can. Trucks, however, are not my background.

I trained as a journalist by doing a one-year NCTJ course. I came out of that knowing how to do shorthand but very little else.

And so I began my working life on the Kent & Sussex Courier, slowly learning the art of writing a news story.

About the same time, my passion for vehicles began to develop – probably caused by a left-hand-drive Peugeot 205 GTi which I very much enjoyed throwing round the lanes of the South-East.

After two years I moved to Barnstaple to write for the North Devon Journal – and discover new lanes to have fun driving round.

A year later, I was back in Kent and commuting into London to work for MicroScope – a trade magazine for people in the IT supply chain.

After two years it was bought by Reed Business Information and my commute changed from a 90-minute train journey to an hour's drive (M25-dependent, of course).

Over the next nine years I worked my way up through the ranks at MicroScope from reporter to news editor. By then it was time for a change and I moved within the building to join CM as news editor in February 2007.

This gave me the chance to expand my passion for motor vehicles from cars to trucks, and I passed my Cat C in July 2007 and Cat C+E in January 2008.

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Update: Roana is currently on maternity leave. Her role will be covered by Lindsay Clark – profile to come soon.