The Stationers' Company has announced a new Master, Trevor Fenwick who promises to be like no other. He has been described by his colleagues at Euromonitor International as the "Chief Disruption Officer" and by a fellow Stationer as "part Luke Skywalker, part Darth Vader."
He became a Liveryman in April 2008, serving on most committees. He has sat on the Industry and Wine committees, chaired the Membership Development Committee, is a Trustee of the Stationers' Foundation and has been a Governor of the Stationers' Crown Woods Academy as well as serving on Court.
He was invited into the Livery by colleagues in publishing who recognised the need for the Stationers to engage with the rapidly evolving world of digital publishing as well as for his experience and knowledge on the subject of copyright and intellectual property which he is passionate about. As co-founder and Executive Chairman of Euromonitor, an online international marketing research data and analytics company, he has lived through the transition from ink on paper to digital content publishing. With that comes globalisation and the complexity of controlling intellectual rights for both the author and publisher. This is a topic he has championed on government committees, within the Professional Publishers' Association (where he is Board Member), the European Data Publishers' Association and at the Stationers' Company. He welcomes the new draft European Copyright Directive with its increased protection of rights holders for reuse of their content and data.
He is passionate about the role of education achieving social mobility and will continue to encourage the work of the Company's Foundation in bringing bursaries to enable young people to attain academic and vocational qualifications and experience that will help them to enter the content and communications trades represented by the Livery.
The major focus in the coming 12 months will be on the refurbishment of Stationers' Hall, a project that will require ambition and vision as the Company seeks to modernise the Hall for the benefit of members and the public whilst retaining the character and sense of history of one of the City's great livery halls. This will require fund-raising and Trevor Fenwick will help to promote that work during his term of office.
Trevor said, "the interaction of art and industry, art and science fascinates me still - the poets and the plumbers side by side. We saw print evolve into mass communication with movable type and we are now going through another exciting but challenging era with digital technology. History informs the way we do things but we are always moving forward."
"Life is a journey of opportunities and challenges, some taken, some missed. I have been extremely lucky, so far, to have had more hits than misses. There was, and is, no masterplan; just enjoy and make the most of the chances that come one's way."