Lee Linford BA (HONS)
Creative Development Director
Lee Linford is a main board director of The Hotel Partnership, trading as Classic British Hotels since 2003.
Lee is an experienced, creative strategic thinker with great conceptualising, design and copy writing skills across both print and electronic media including web. He has a multi-faceted knowledge of the web and print from both a technical and marketing perspective. His classical marketing approach and constant search for excellence, brings skills and expertise rarely found in any hotel organisation for independent hotels. He is also able through his expertise to bring out the very best from the specialist companies & agencies employed on an on-going basis to keep the organisation at the cutting edge of the industry.
After graduating from University in Advertising, Media & Marketing, Lee started at Bray Leino - a full service advertising agency affiliated to Bozell Worldwide network. He worked on a range of advertising accounts, which included Castrol, Loctite, Kimberley Clark, Commercial Union, and others. Here he was involved in both above and below the line advertising, covering conceptualising, creative development, print production for national press, promotional literature & POS, print buying and copy clearance for broadcast media.
At Best Western Hotels as Print & Publications Manager, he was responsible for the production of all Best Western (GB) printed literature from creative inception to print delivery, liaising initially with around 230 hotels and later with 400 hotels following the merger of Best Western with another hotel consortium.
After a whirlwind round-the-world trip, Lee went freelance, embarking on creative design & print marketing contracts, which gave him further experience on brand communications. This began with a stretch working in the Creative Services Department at Virgin Atlantic Airways. This in-house design team provided cutting-edge, on-brand creative work for all departments within Virgin Atlantic, operating like an internal creative agency.
His assignment at Superdrug Stores plc, where the brand had recently undergone a major image revamp, all the printed literature and promotional material for the retail stores had to be developed to clearly communicate the brand.
He was later involved in setting up a start-up book publisher, and took on the role of Editor working with a team to set up a publishing company, which they named Mad Moose press Publishing, producing quality gift books. He managed the entire process for a range of 4-colour illustrated books, from initial creative concept through to delivery, and having considerable creative input, he was responsible for sourcing/commissioning design, editorial, illustrations, images, materials and for printing titles in the Far East and organising shipping to the UK and USA.
