Managing Editor – The Grocer

The Grocer is the UK’s biggest, most interesting and most widely respected B2B publication, and the trusted source of the £210bn Food & Drink industry.

A multi-award-winning, multi-media powerhouse, it prides itself on its outstanding journalism, editorial integrity and creativity.

It’s the flagship of the highly successful William Reed group, a family-owned global media group, powering customer success through insight, inspiration and connection across content, events, conferences, and research in the UK, Europe, US and Far East.

Position

The Grocer is looking for an outstanding business journalist and editor, to take responsibility for the magazine’s day-to-day operations, working alongside the editor-in-chief and editor of thegrocer.co.uk to help steer The Grocer through its continued evolution as a highly successful, fully paid-for publication.

With a 27-strong editorial team, and working across print, online and newsletter publications, this is a big job, with high standards to maintain, new challenges to tackle and new opportunities that need to be explored to ensure we meet the needs of our audience and continue to build on our legacy, which dates back to 1862.

But it’s worth it! The Grocer covers a wide range of topics – the economy, health & obesity, food safety, entrepreneurship, online, sustainability, technology (including AI), new product development, marketing & advertising, supply chain, pay & remuneration – and its coverage is highly valued by its readers and regularly picked up by the national and even international media.

What you’ll be doing

The managing editor reports into the editor-in-chief and is responsible for running the day-to-day operations of a) the print magazine in general b) our product & supplier coverage c) our Special Reports and Focus Ons. Your role is to:

1. Uphold the high editorial standards set by The Grocer, ensuring that our journalism is accurate, robust, authoritative and fair.
2. Ensure The Grocer is run efficiently and effectively in terms of briefing, planning, workflow and production, with direct responsibility for product & supplier news and features.
3. Manage a team of editors and journalists, proofing and signing off copy, while empowering the team to take responsibility for their work where appropriate.
4. Maintain and develop solutions that maximise commercial opportunities (while retaining editorial independence).
5. Optimise content to achieve maximum success in digital forms and formats, while making best use of digital tools and software where appropriate to enhance the offer.
6. Manage our regular columnists, and finding new ones, to ensure that The Grocer is full of interesting, topical and well-read comment and opinion.
7. Contribute to the strategic direction and brand positioning of The Grocer as it evolves as a multi-platform publication, so that the title fulfils the needs of its readers on a daily and weekly basis, across digital and print.
8. Deputise for the editor-in-chief of The Grocer in conjunction with the editor of thegrocer.co.uk.
9. Represent The Grocer in the media, chairing awards panels, conferences and webinars, attending conferences.

Requirements

What you’ll need

1. Extensive B2B journalism and editing experience.
2. Strong commissioning, editing, rewriting skills across news, features and opinion.
3. Excellent skills, speed, flexibility and creativity.
4. Superb people management and motivational skills.
5. Strong delegation skills, but also a willingness to sweat the details.
6. An understanding of online, audio-visual and social media.
7. Knowledge of retail, food & drink, fast moving consumer goods etc is not essential, but will clearly be welcome.

Location: Hybrid – at least two days per week in our Crawley and/or London offices. For commuting to the Crawley office, we have a minibus service which provides convenient transportation to and from the nearest station (Three Bridges) at the start and end of each day.

Company Benefits Include:

1. 25 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays – increasing by one additional day after 6 years, up to a maximum of 30 days.
2. An additional day of leave for you to take on a cultural celebration day or on your birthday if you like. A day for you! At William Reed, we call this our “MeDay”.
3. A volunteer day to take for supporting a chosen charity and giving back to the community.
4. Opportunity for hybrid working.
5. Contributory Pension.
6. Life Assurance Scheme.
7. Group Income Protection.
8. Enhanced family-friendly leave pay entitlements.
9. Wellbeing benefits, including: A health care cash plan, Employee assistance programme, Virtual GP service and Access to health & wellbeing resources and tools.
10. Cycle to Work Scheme.
11. Electric Car Scheme.

Why work for us

We provide a supportive work environment and are committed to maintaining a healthy work/life balance for all of our employees. Working for William Reed means that you will be joining a stable organisation that is committed to developing its employees and brands.

We warmly welcome and encourage applications from talented individuals of all backgrounds and characteristics.

If you need any support in accessing this opportunity, please do not hesitate to discuss this with us.