Robin Fairlie

Co-Editor-in-Chief

Robin Fairlie, MA, F IDM, is a founder-member of the IDM. After graduating in History at Cambridge, he spent four years working for Remington Rand Univac (now a part of Unisys) on computer systems. He then joined Reader's Digest, where he installed that company's first computer. He left Reader's Digest in 1980, having been for his last ten years there Business Services Director, and spent the next two years as Managing Director of a company in the library supply business. Robin was then head-hunted by the Post Office to set up and run the Direct Mail Services Standards Board, providing discounts to mailing houses that met strict ethical and professional criteria.

Leaving there after four years, Robin embarked on a career as an independent consultant. His biggest client was the Royal Mail, for whom he negotiated with the direct marketing industry the inception of Mailsort, Presstream, and the Mailing Standards Levy, acting for some years as editor of the Mailsort User's Guide. In the early 1990s he negotiated the amalgamation of a number of pre-existing trade bodies to form the Direct Marketing Association, and wrote the constitution for that body. He sat for some years on the Council of the IDM, and wrote the Code of Conduct for IDM members. He has been co-editor of the internationally recognized Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, formerly Interactive Marketing, since its inception.