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Jon Barton
Founder and public face of the company. An outdoor enthusiast with over twenty years' publishing experience, he’s the author of Vertebrate’s best-selling Peak District Mountain Bikingand White Peak Mountain Bikingguides. A keen runner, climber and mountain biker, he spent much of his twenties touring the world as a ‘professional’ (his words) climber and has now settled down, with the dream of one day not being the slowest runner in the company.
Stephen Ross
A senior member of the team, Stephen is a lifelong fan of all things adventure. A keen fell & trail runner, cyclist and general outdoor enthusiast. Stephen's long and successful business career brings organisation and expertise to our enterprise; while his love of getting people outdoors is forever an inspiration for the great books we publish. The company's fastest runner (his words).
John Coefield
John is responsible for developing VP into one of the leading publishers of outdoor books in the UK. Under his guidance, our titles have picked up numerous awards – including the prestigious Boardman Tasker Prize, the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival and the TGO Book of the Year award. John is a keen rock climber and mountain biker and is author of the award-winning Peak District Bouldering.
Jo Sullivan
Jo is Vertebrate's finance director, she has had a very accomplished career in finance and senior management and joins us as a much needed grown up. Very rarely seen on the running strategy away days.
Kirsty Reade
Kirsty is our Commissioning Editor. Born and raised in the Peak District she then worked for various publishers down south for 20 years, before realising the error of her ways and moving back even further north to Cumbria. A keen fell and trail runner, when not working she is usually out using her poor navigation skills to recce a route, or mountain biking in Grizedale Forest with her canine companion, Gilbert.
Jane Beagley
Jane, our head of design, is responsible for the output of our award-winning books, ebooks and print-on-demand for Vertebrate Publishing. After qualifying in art, design and photography in her native South Africa, she honed her skills in several thriving design studios before moving to the UK. She is motivated and enthusiastic with a fine attention to detail and an eye for a catchy cover. You might spot her doing her best to be athletic pounding the pavements in Sheffield's suburbia.
Lorna Brogan
Our Head of Marketing, Lorna is a publishing Masters graduate, and short listed young publisher of the year. She is responsible for publicity of our growing list. Originally from the sunny(ish) seaside town of Southport, out of the office, she can often be found getting lost, exploring the many mountainous streets around her new home of Sheffield, looking for foxes or travelling the world in search of pandas.
Sophie Fletcher
Sophie is our business manager looking after the admin and our social media output. She lives in the heart of the Peak District with her super-keen MTB family and loves nothing more than being in the Scottish highlands, either climbing munros or riding her bike. She owns many hats.
Helen Parry
Helen joined Vertebrate in 2019 as our Guidebooks Editor. She has brought with her fifteen-plus years of publishing experience to the outdoor market. A Sheffield native and a keen walker and runner, at weekends you’ll usually find her out and about enjoying the green spaces in Sheffield and the Peak District with her family.
Vicky Frost
Vicky is the most recent addition to the team as our Marketing Executive and in-house artist. After relocating to Sheffield in 2022, the neighbours are chuffed the drum kit hasn't relocated with her (yet) and that instead she can often be seen returning home with very muddy socks after exploring the Peak District. You might see her out in the wild painting window displays or with her camera creating social media content.