Ann Williams has trod a rather unusual road to becoming a writer, publisher, trainer and consultant. She started her career with technical qualifications and spent the first decade of her adult life in the male-dominated environs of heavy industry, from the Nissan and Mercedes Benz plants to a leather tannery and a printing inks manufacturer, during which time she has held the positions of Quality Assurance Auditor, Administrator or Manager.
While in these industries she spent a large portion of her time organising technical and management systems and writing the accompanying documentation, as well as doing practical staff training. She has also spent more than two years as the Production Manager of South Africa’s largest direct mailing company.
Her more recent career as a journalist started more than a decade ago with her writing articles for a neighbourhood newspaper in East London. A year later she was working for a stable of the newspapers in the area as a freelance journalist, a full-time sub-editor (copy and layout) and occasional locum editor.
She later worked for Business Day newspaper as a sub-editor and went on to become the Online Editor.
Since getting married she has done freelance work for both print and electronic publications, was the marketing correspondent for the now defunct Gauteng Business newspaper, as well as having designed, produced and edited a number of websites.
Over the years she has written in the fields of marketing, management, entrepreneurship, commerce and industry, quality assurance, science and technology, engineering, education, medical and life-skills, as well as working in Public Relations on occasion (often as a volunteer) and has built strong organisational skills on technical, engineering and community projects.
Ann is also a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach, having obtained her qualification directly from the official Jay-Conrad Levinson coaching academy in the USA, and currently also does marketing consulting for small business owners.
She has various qualifications / studies in plastics technology, rubber technology and quality assurance as well as in information technology and entrepreneurship / management / marketing – but she most enjoys getting things done in practice.
