Da Vinci - The Team
James
Essinger MA (Oxon) MIPR - MIPR - has worked in public relations since 1984 and has been a member of the Institute of Public Relations since 1988. Prior to founding Da Vinci Public Relations, James carried out an executive role at several leading London PR consultancies where he represented many blue-chip companies.
James has considerable expertise in corporate public relations for organisations that sell services with a high cerebral content. These organisations usually cannot be effectively promoted merely through advertising and press releases, but must rely on generating publicity for their expertise through such techniques as 'thoughtpiece' articles which are syndicated to a wide number of media, and by generating in-depth profiles with leading newspapers and journals. Many of James' current clients have been with him for many years. He is also adept at running PR campaigns for travel clients who benefit from Da Vinci's inexhaustible energy, determination to get results and careful attention to detail in what is a highly competitive marketplace.
James is also a highly experienced and extremely able writer.
Business writing
During the past twenty years James has ghost-written, under clients’ names, more than 500 thought-leadership articles on a wide range of areas of management thinking and practical business operation.
He is a particular specialist in the following areas:
- accountancy
- banking
- consultancy
- customer centricity
- customer relations
- financial services
- law
- Human Resources
- professional services
James’s extensive experience of business writing has also embraced writing business books under his own name. He has written more than 30 of these altogether. His business books include:
- Customer Strategy - devising successful strategies in food and drink - Reuters Business Insight: 2003
- Internet Security - Pearson Education: 2001
- The Future of Banking - Pearson Education: 2000
Japanese-language edition now available - Breakthrough Consultancy (with Alex Dembitz)- Financial Times Publishing: 2000
- Inside Outsourcing (co-authored with Charles L. Gay) - Nicholas Brealey Publishing: 2000.
Polish-language edition now available. - Global Custody - Financial Times Publishing: 1999
- Writing Marketing Copy to Get Results - International Thomson: 1999
- The Seven Deadly Skills of Competing - International Thomson: 1998.
Chinese-language edition now available. - The Virtual Banking Revolution - International Thomson: 1998 Global Custody (New Edition) Financial Times : 1997
- Computer Security in Financial Institutions: Controlling Risk (New Edition) - Financial Times : 1996
- Virtual Financial Services - Financial Times : 1996
- How to Write Marketing Copy that Gets Results - Pitman/British Institute of Management : 1996
- Financial Technology: Effective Cost Management - Financial Times : 1994
- Eastern European Banking - Chapman & Hall : 1994
- Starting a High-Income Consultancy - Pitman/British Institute of Management : 1994
Italian-language edition now available. - Managing Technology in Financial Institutions - Pitman/Financial Times : 1993
Italian-language edition now available - The Investment Manager’s Handbook - Chapman & Hall : 1992
- Electronic Payment Systems: Winning New Customers - Chapman & Hall : 1992
- Investment Management Training Manual - Euromoney : 1992
James is especially adept at making complex subjects comprehensible to non-technical people without ‘talking down’ to readers. James’s writing is known for being original, incisive, entertaining and factually reliable.
Mass-market books
James also writes mass-market books under his own name.
He began this side of his activities with a gripping and fast-paced account of how the computer derives from the Jacquard punched-card loom. This book, Jacquard's Web, how a hand loom led to the birth of the information age, was published by Oxford University Press in October 2004. It was named by The Economist magazine one of the best five popular science books of 2004. The paperback was published in March 2007.
James next turned to looking at why the English language is so difficult to spell. His book Spellbound: the improbable story of English spelling, was published in May 2006 by Robson Books. The Times Educational Supplement described it as being ‘full of treasures’ and added that it ‘deserves as wide and devoted a readership as Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves - indeed it deserves far more.’ This book was published on May 1 2007 in the US by Random House under the title Spellbound: the surprising origins and astonishing secrets of English spelling.
James also writes fiction.
In his spare time, James is a keen cyclist and enjoys playing chess and walking in the country around his home town of Canterbury.
Helen Wylie BSc, MA - Helen is a highly experienced public relations consultant and co-founder of Da Vinci Public Relations. She has been a public relations account director for more than twelve years. At Da Vinci PR she heads the travel wing of the business and is also heavily involved with the firm's business development, setting up relationships with new clients and planning the infrastructure of new accounts.
Helen has co-written business books for a variety of well-known publishers including Datamonitor, Financial Times, International Thomson, Pearson Education and Reuters.
After growing up in New York, Helen moved to the UK to take her BSc in Business Studies at the University of Buckingham. She then spent a year teaching English in Madrid and a year working in marketing and PR in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates before returning to England to continue her PR career.
In 2002, Helen took her Masters in Sociology at University of Kent.
Helen is a passionate traveller and swimmer. She is also a talented and highly creating potter who has sold ceramics to several professional galleries.
Stephen Gillatt joined Da Vinci Public Relations as a trainee in July 2003. Since then, he has worked on all aspects of the business, and particularly on business development and media relations. He is currently our media relations manager and is known to journalists for his thoroughness, tenacity and tactful insistence that they give full consideration to material he sends them! Stephen is as adept in this role on the corporate PR side as for our travel PR clients.
In his spare time Stephen is a keen angler and has on several occasions caught a massive (but presumably not very bright) female carp known as 'She'. This obliging fish is to be found in a lake known as School Pool near his home town of Faversham in Kent.
