Who's who at The Motley Fool
Here is a brief introduction to each member of our editorial and community teams.
Alison joined the Fool in 2004 after a career as a chemist. She is a committed money saver, so much so that her husband never bothers to check any Best Buy tables, as he knows she will already have found the best deal anyway.
Outside of work, Ally's time is mainly occupied with bringing up her baby daughter, hence the brevity of this entry.
After completing a PhD in Chemistry at Imperial College, David returned to his hometown in Hong Kong to hone his business skills. When he returned to the UK, via Singapore, he did a stint at Hilton Group's Racing Division, where he picked up a tip or two about the world of horse racing.
David, married with two children, has now settled down to a more sedate life, writing investment content for the Fool and producing our regular podcasts. For his sins he is also the company's media personality and can often be heard sparring with the likes of Danny Baker and Jon Gaunt on BBC Radio London.
Finding accountancy over-complicated and the insurance world too interesting, David identified the City of London as the best paid sector of the economy requiring the least academic ability.
It proved a natural fit and for 20 years David worked in the Square Mile as an analyst and fund manager. He also tried his hand at stockbroking for a French bank, where he developed a taste for Calvados.
Calculating that while commuting he had spent a whole year actually sitting on a train, he reckoned he had made enough money to leave the City and start his own company. But he soon discovered that it’s much easier telling other people how to run a business than to do it oneself. When his firm went wrong, David signed up at the Fool for another dose of the daily rat race.
He describes his investment stance as cautious contrarianism. His colleagues think he is over-opinionated and excessively bearish.
Donna studied English at Cambridge University and began her career as a journalist at the age of 21 with an internship at The San Diego Community Newspaper Group, followed by a short stint at CNN.
Over the years, she has worked for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including such glamorous titles as ‘Beer, Wine & Spirits’ -- a monthly magazine for pub-owners in New Zealand – and the UK PR industry’s weekly bible, ‘PRWeek.’ But it was writing about personal finance as Deputy Editor of Your Mortgage magazine that Donna really found her niche. She joined the Fool in 2007, shortly after gaining her NCTJ qualification.
In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her friends and swapping books online. A colleague once described her as “Jeremy Paxman with weapons”, but she’s really quite nice and friendly. As long as you stay on her good side, that is...
Aged 18, Ed was highly ambitious and wanted to be Prime Minister. So he went to Oxford to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and had a great time. He also realised that he wasn't as ambitious as he had once thought.
After graduation, he flirted with becoming a Thatcherite entrepreneur and then pursued a career in law, which was cut short by ill health. Ed then became interested in the stock market, discovering The Motley Fool in 1998. This led to spells as a financial journalist at Citywire and breakingviews before joining The Fool in 2005 as an Investment Writer. He then became Editor at Christmas 2006.
Ed's other interests include theatre and walking round London. He can also talk for hours about Paul McCartney. According to Ed, some of McCartney's finest work was written and recorded after the Beatles broke up. Ed is yet to meet anyone who agrees with him.
After studying for a degree in philosophy and politics at Staffordshire University, Jane somehow fell into a completely unrelated job in financial services at Virgin Direct. A move to the financial publication, Moneyfacts, followed, where she spent three years working as a features writer specialising in pension and investments.
Jane then had a brief stint as a paraplanner at a financial adviser firm, where she worked as hard to prepare financial plans for individuals as Neil Faulkner did as a paralegal. Probably harder, she argues smugly. And for less money. But having decided paraplanning wasn’t for her after all, she is now enjoying working as a personal finance writer at The Fool.
During her varied financial career, Jane has also passed the Certificate in Financial Planning (CertPFS.)
Jane has recently moved to London where she spends most of her time either getting lost or taking ridiculously short tube journeys to avoid doing so.
After managing to scrape just two A-Levels together at college, Maynard worked for a year as a Poll Tax clerk and then for six years at the local authority's IT department in the murky world of ICL mainframes and COBOL programming. He relocated to Kent to join a financial services firm's IT department and there discovered the joys of stock market investing.
After reading every investment book ever written and writing a couple of articles for Analyst magazine he joined the Fool in 1999. He ran the Fool's Qualiport portfolio for many years and is now the lead analyst for Champion Shares, our share picking newsletter. His hobbies include keeping his wife in a good mood, fighting for space on trains and sleeping.
Neil worked his way through mountains of small claims cases as a paralegal, which, he says, is basically solicitors' work but for a lot less money. When he could see over the top of the stack of files, he moved on to become a consultant and then claims manager in the general insurance industry. His writing skills were sharpened in ze precise vorld uv technical writing.
A long-time fan of The Motley Fool, in March 2006 he jumped at the chance to write with a bit more style and humour as one of their personal finance writers. Since then he's been conned, guilt-tripped, hypnotized, voodooed, or simply dragged kicking and screaming to provide financial commentary for The Fool on Channel Five News and for radio stations, including Radio Five Live.
Neil has written extensively on unfair bank charges and is also particularly interested in debt issues.
When she was younger, Serena couldn’t decide whether to become a vet, a spy, an author or an actress -- so she went to Oxford University to study History instead. Plumping for actress, she then trained at the Central School for Speech and Drama and trod the boards for a couple of years, before catching the writing bug and becoming a journalist.
In her spare moments, Serena enjoys being strapped to a plank (snowboarding), dangling off things (rockclimbing) and reading everything from Primo Levy to Maeve Binchy. She is also a great believer in the power of escapism, and can often be found knee-deep in popcorn and romantic movies.
She joined the Motley Fool in 2007. She hasn’t become a vet or spy yet, but feels there’s still time.
An aspiring writer from a young age, Szu Ping spent many years dreaming of becoming a fully fledged journalist. Graduating in 2006 after studying English Language and Literature at King’s College, London, she was immediately thrust into the media limelight where she spent time at The Guardian on work experience, juggling a number of vital journalistic tasks including writing articles and making tea.
After branching into the world of publishing and practically writing a book for less than the cost of the shirt on her back, Szu Ping joined The Motley Fool in October 2007. She now divides her time between writing about money in the office and trying to restrain herself from spending it on clothes, shoes and other shiny things outside of it.
Cliff D'Arcy, Freelance Contributor (CunningCliff)
After studying Maths, Statistics and Computer Science at London University, Cliff drifted into a career in the thrilling world of insurance. Following a brief stint as a financial adviser, he worked in marketing for several of the UK's largest banks and insurance companies.
Tired of working for corporate dinosaurs and wanting to communicate with a wider audience, he decided to earn an honest living by becoming a financial journalist. Cliff joined the Fool in 2003 and then morphed into a freelance writer in 2005.
Jon originally started a degree in biotechnology, but became disillusioned with a placement making toothpaste, so dropped out. Eventually, he picked up a degree in Cultural Studies, followed a few years later by a Masters degree in IT, after which he spent 8 years working at a university, lecturing in computing and doing research into web search engine technology, followed by nearly four years developing robotic laboratory automation systems for the pharmaceutical industry.
Jon's other previous jobs have included - wine merchant, community worker, record shop assistant, croupier, double-glazing salesman, bar tender, market researcher, actor and fire-eater. (One of those is a lie - and it's not 'fire-eater'.)
Jon now works in the Community department of the Fool, dealing with customer service enquiries and performing 'conflict resolution duties' on the discussion boards. In his spare time he keeps several tarantulas, reads voraciously, listens to a frighteningly eclectic range of music, and cooks a great deal of curry.
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