Meet some of the team

Belinda

Belinda started Acorn Studio Press with one simple idea: that children’s thinking should be visible, celebrated, and nurtured. She’s the one connecting the dots, from designing new programmes, to talking with schools, to dreaming up the big ideas that keep us moving.

Fun fact: Belinda is never seen without a notebook, because you never know when the next spark will appear. She comes as a pair with a small, noisy dog.

Kim

Kim is our production lead. She takes the ideas and turns them into real, beautiful packs and books that look good and work in practice. Every worksheet, every page that lands in your hands has passed through Kim’s care. She also looks after customer care making sure you get the answers you need.

Fun fact: Kim has a knack for spotting typos at ten paces, a superpower that keeps us all sharp, as well as a knack for ensuring everyone who contacts us, leaves us happy with their questions answered and knowing that their feedback makes us better.

Lara is our Pathways lead, bringing a unique energy and empathy to our school workshops and Pathways projects. She’s also our voice to the outside world, sharing our mission through marketing. She's easy to spot - just look for the back of her bright yellow wheelchair as she races off to speak to the next person.

Fun fact: Give Lara a box of paints and some good music, and she’ll lose hours happily creating. When she runs out of canvas, she moves onto the walls. Never let her run out of canvas!

Lara

Craig

Craig is our shipping, stock and operations guru. He makes sure everything we create actually gets to where it needs to go. From ordering just enough each month, to packing boxes to managing stock, he’s the quiet hero who keeps the wheels turning and the deliveries landing on time.

Fun facts: Craig can pack a van like Tetris, neat, balanced, and somehow with space to spare. He inspired our very first Acorn Story ever. Don't ever leave him near a button that says "don't touch". He HAS to know what it will do.

Vada

Vada is our Natural World Expert and Advisor, the person who makes sure our Is are dotted and our Ts are crossed. (And I know she's reading that line and about to tell me that the way I've expressed it is wrong!) She lives happily with two Maine Coon cats who very firmly rule the household, and she proudly answers to the title of crazy cat lady.

Fun facts: When she's not a slave to feline royalty, Vada is a walking encyclopedia of wonderfully specific animal knowledge. If you ever wanted to know how many pads a tiger footprint should have, or why a Sumatran orangutan is different to a Bornean orangutan - she’s your girl.

Paul

Jaco is our technical extraordinaire and resident wizard of complicated things. If it runs on electricity and binary, chances are he’s had his fingers in it at some point. Need a doodah that connects to a thingummy and makes the whatsit work properly? Jaco’s your man. When something technical needs solving, we simply wind Jaco up and point him in the right direction. He quietly chuckles to himself while making computers do things, and we try not to disturb him while the magic happens.

Fun fact: Jaco once went to visit his aunt for the weekend. He came home having decided to buy a house and an electric car. He hasn’t visited her since. We’re not entirely sure why. And we don't talk about it.

Jaco

Paul is our Mr No-Longer-Impossible. When something can’t be done, won’t be done, or definitely shouldn’t be done… that’s usually when Paul gets involved.

A 3D printer refusing to cooperate? Call Paul. The perfect envelopes that no printer will touch? Call Paul. Somewhere, somehow he’ll quietly make it work and carry on as if it was obvious all along. (And all with the help of a flat battery and a piece of tin foil... Uncanny!)

Fun facts: We’re fairly certain Paul invented cheese tax. And ham tax. And, in fact, any tax that might be owed to a dog when food appears. Don’t try to catch him in the act, he’s remarkably good at spoiling dogs while appearing to look in the opposite direction.