Ashley Friedlein

Name	Ashley Friedlein
Job Title	CEO
Organization	Econsultancy
Member Level	Staff
Member Since	4 Sep 2000
Areas of Expertise	B2B Marketing, E-commerce, Email Marketing, Strategy and Planning, Web Analytics

About Me

I started out working in digital TV and multimedia production. I then worked at the Financial Times on arguably the first commercial application of Video on Demand (1996) before getting involved with FT.com as a Producer / Project Manager.

In 1997 I moved to digital communications agency Wheel as the third person in the then 'internet team'. I went through the dotcom boom, seeing Wheel grow from 30 people to 450 in just 3 years, and was involved in launching sites for M&S, Abbey National, IPC Magazines, Autoglass, Channel 5, AMP etc.

Following the dotcom crash (which saw Wheel shrink back to a more modest 90 or so staff) I left and spent a very pleasant sabbatical year writing my second book in the South of France. I then returned to the UK and from June 2002 I have been running Econsultancy full time.

Along the way I've written two best-selling books on web management: "Web Project Management: Delivering successful commercial web sites" which was published in 2000 and "Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Websites: Managing Change, Content, Customer Relationships and Site Measurement" published in December 2002. Between them the books have sold over 40,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into French, German and Chinese.

I have spoken at numerous international conferences, from the USA to Croatia, as well as trade events in the UK, on a range of digital marketing and e-commerce topics. I also contribute to trade publications such as Marketing Week, Revolution, New Media Age, Internet Works etc. And, of course, there's my Econsultancy blog contributions and Twitter feed.

My Links

Econsultancy
The company I co-founded - this site!

LBi
LBi - the agency I worked for during the dotcom boom and bust

FT.com
The FT site - another former employer

My 2 books on Amazon.com
A couple of books I've written in the past - a bit out of date to recommend now though!

Pembroke College, Cambridge
My college at Cambridge University

Career History

CEO and Co-founder at Econsultancy
From November 1, 1999 and still in this role.

I co-founded Econsultancy in 1999. We publish research and run events and training for digital marketing and ecommerce professionals. We have over 80,000+ members worldwide.

Lead Strategist / Project Director at LBi
From August 1, 1997 until August 1, 2001.

I started as a Producer in the then 3-person strong Internet team. In the next 3 years the Internet became the entire focus for the agency which grew to over 400 people at its height. During that time I rose through Senior Producer, to Project Director, to Lead Strategist. I was involved with the launch of numerous multi-million pound sites for a range of large media, financial services, retail and other clients.

Producer at Financial Times / FT.com
From March 1, 1996 until July 31, 1997.

I began working on Veritas, one of the first commercial Video on Demand (VOD) projects in the UK. I then got involved with FT.com (19996) and thus began my career shift from TV over to the internet.

Producer at CFTP - Cambridge Film & Television Productions
From July 1, 1995 until February 28, 1996.

I was a TV Producer at independent TV and multimedia production company CFTP - Cambridge Film and Television Productions. We carried out projects both for broadcast TV (Channel 4, Anglia Television etc.) as well as commercial video projects. I was instrumental in bringing digital video editing and multimedia production capabilities into the company (Media 100, Avid etc). So began my interest in digital media.

Education and Qualifications

My last qualification was a 1st Class degree in Modern Languages (French and German) from Cambridge University (Pembroke College) which was from 1991-1995.