Alison Grade: How to find your niche and win work as a freelancer

Alison uses her rare mix of creative, academic and business experience to help transform creative concepts into business reality. Alison spent 15 years working at senior level in many media companies – predominantly in international television and film production, rights management and strategy – but she also has formal academic training and is a Nesta-accredited Creative Enterprise Trainer. Add to that mix that Alison is also an entrepreneur who has established her own businesses and it becomes clear why she is in such demand by many creative businesses as a consultant and non-exec. She is also the author of the Penguin bestseller, The Freelance Bible

Currently Alison owns Mission Accomplished, a consultancy offering training, mentoring and strategic advice to start-ups and established SMEs in the Creative Industries. Alison has extensive experience in providing one-to-one business support and workshops to both pre-start and existing Creative Industries SMEs through her work on a range of programmes with universities and institutions including ScreenSkills, the British Council, the BBC Academy, Birmingham City University, Coventry University and Aston University.