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The Bigstar Team

Derryck Strachan, Owner/MD

Derryck began his career in the music industry as a copywriter and PR for Warner Music, Virgin and Polydor Records. He then spent six years as a freelance UK copywriter and journalist for clients including Frukt, Accenture, Time Life, Tower Records, Amazon, mymovies.net and bbc.co.uk.

After relocating to Devon he worked as a food writer including work for Time Out, AA Guides, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Food Magazine. He spent two years as marketing director of Ashburton Cookery School, where he also taught courses on Thai and Cooking With Chillies - the latter was chosen by Waitrose magazine as one of their top twenty-five cookery courses. Derryck helped to develop the business into one of the UK's leading cookery schools almost entirely through successful Internet marketing.

In 2005 he set up Copywriting Devon as a dedicated copywriting service. You can read more about the clients he’s worked with over the last five years here.

Steve Kellas, Content Director

A Canadian expat, Steve has 13 years of experience of website copywriting and Internet marketing, and has worked at several top international and UK advertising and digital agencies, including Critical Mass, Columbus Group (Telus) and Cossette (Fjord Interactive) where he was Associate Creative Director.

Before leaving Canada for the UK, he was instrumental in winning a McDonald's social media website project for the agency. Steve joins us from Bray Leino where he has worked on projects for Wrigley, BP and Castrol among others.

He has over 10 years experience training and teaching website copywriting at the University of British Columbia, as well as for many corporations, government agencies and small businesses. His role at Big Star will involve content strategy and training, as well as web copywriting.

Kes Cross, Editor

Kes has had a varied career spanning everything from freelancing on the national press through to working as a motorcycle driving instructor. Her extensive experience in journalism has given her a skills set that encompasses everything from article writing to producing SEO content that engages, stimulates and has, on occasion, been known to start some very lively debates.

Never afraid to take on challenging work, she has produced copy on every topic imaginable, from car number plates through to complex legal articles. She now spends the majority of her time looking after our writers, editing copy, mentoring and occasionally shouting (as editors do) when deadlines aren’t met. She’s a keen surfer, martial arts enthusiast and strangely enough, quite a good welder.

Graeme Strachan, Brand Consultant

Graeme has a wide-ranging and extensive knowledge of wine and spirits acquired through an 18-year career primarily with a UK luxury drinks distributor, Paragon Vintners and as a Senior Account Director at the specialist drinks agency, Drink Works.

During this time Graeme has absorbed a wide range of approaches to branding and marketing and has delivered extensive strategy and content for leading global spirits companies. He has created and written the complete brand stories and training programs for both Martini and Jagermeister, and worked extensively on the brand and drinks history of Bacardi.

Graeme’s role at Big Star Content is brand and content consultant, creating brand stories and delivering and implementing brand content guidelines.