I joined Elsevier Ireland in 1996 as an Issue Manager. In 1999 I moved into the new formed Reporting, Applications & Maintenance Department as a QC & Training Coordinator. The role involved monitoring the quality of copy-editing and typesetting by suppliers (a role that was centralized a couple of years later), but I also trained all new Issue Managers and Production staff. The latter part of the role kept me very busy indeed, as Shannon showed significant growth between 1999 and 2002 and I inducted approximately 30 new production staff via a 4 week training program.

In 2002 I joined the newly formed ESIS (Electronic Submission, Implementation & Support) team and also completed my diploma in Supervisory Management, an experience that would launch a management career a couple of years later. In my ESIS role I was responsible for rolling out journals to the Elsevier Editorial System. The role involved a lot of global cooperation with Publishing, Technical Services and Journal Editors. In February 2004 I was appointed Deputy Manager of ESIS and in September that year I took on the role of Manager of ESIS, with 13 direct reports in Shannon, Paris & San Diego. Making 1,000 journals live on EES by the end of 2005 was certainly the highlight of my career up to that time and the ESIS team deservedly got great credit for this achievement.

In April 2006, I was appointed Manager of Editorial Production Customer Support (EPCS) – an amalgamation of the ESIS department, Author Support and E-Submission Support. The EPCS department has 26 staff in total, in Shannon, San Diego, Paris, Barcelona and Tokyo. The department includes support agents, team leads and specialists in the areas of supplier management, quality control, reporting & analysis and customer relations. EPCS also have 28 support agents in Manila with our outsourcing partners SPI. EPCS currently processes approx. 3,500 queries weekly from authors, reviewers & editors.

In August 2009, I was appointed General Manager of EES Services, within the newly formed EES organization and reporting to Els Niehaus (VP/Director EES). EES Services has 14 staff in total, with staff based in Shannon, San Diego, Paris, Oxford and Barcelona. I currently have 5 direct reports who work closely with key stakeholders in both Operations and Publishing.

Adrian Tedford