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Ed James and Ellie-Rose Griffiths

About

We did this for a living. Now we teach it.

Twenty-five years on air between a breakfast show and a newsroom.

Why we built it

Most communication training is written by people who have never had to do it with a red light on and no second take.

Ed James on air at BBC Radio WM

Broadcaster · Presenter · Host

Ed James

17 yearspresenting Heart West Midlands Breakfast

Ed fronted Heart Breakfast across the West Midlands from 2002 to 2019, then Drive until 2025, and now hosts weekday mid-mornings on BBC Radio WM. Add ITV Central, a Gold Sony Radio Award, a Birmingham Mail column since 2009 and the chair of Birmingham Press Club.

Live is the part that teaches you. You learn to think while you are talking — the exact skill people want in a boardroom, and the one nobody trains them in.

  • Speaking
  • Presenting
  • Hosting
  • Thinking on your feet
  • Leadership comms
Ellie-Rose Griffiths, co-founder of Engaged

Journalist · Reporter · Presenter

Ellie-Rose Griffiths

ITV Newsjournalist, reporter and presenter

Ellie-Rose spent her career in a newsroom deciding which stories ran. She knows what makes something interesting to a journalist because she was the journalist making the call — which is why the PR side of Engaged works nothing like an agency’s.

A newsroom teaches you one question and you never stop asking it: why would anybody care about this? Almost everyone has an answer. Almost nobody has said it out loud.

  • PR & media
  • Storytelling
  • Interview technique
  • Camera confidence
  • Presenting

The record

Where the two of them learned it.

None of it is a training qualification. All of it is having had to get it right while it was going out.

Ed James

  • Heart West Midlands Breakfast, 2002–2019
  • Heart Drive, until 2025
  • BBC Radio WM, weekday mid-mornings
  • ITV Central, The Biz
  • Gold Sony Radio Award, 2011
  • Birmingham Mail columnist since 2009
  • Chairman, Birmingham Press Club
  • Co-author, Be More Kid

Ellie-Rose Griffiths

  • ITV News journalist, reporter and presenter
  • Live reporting and studio presenting
  • Interviewing under time pressure
  • Deciding which stories ran
  • High-level competitive tennis
  • Founder of Ready to Roll

What that changes

There is a large industry built on communication theory — models, frameworks and acronyms, taught by trainers who learned them from other trainers.

None of it helps at the moment somebody has to stand up with a dry mouth and forty colleagues watching. Or when a journalist rings and there are four minutes to decide what the company’s position is.

We have both been in those moments, professionally, thousands of times. What Engaged teaches is what works when the room is real.

Who you actually get

Communication is not personality. It is a trainable performance skill.

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