James Douma, Copyeditor and Proofreader (English Language)

About

I am a native English speaker of Irish parentage living in the Netherlands. For most of my career I have worked in publishing in various capacities for a renowned international magazine. I am currently working as a freelance copyeditor of English language theses and other academic writing.

Experience

24editor

May 2022 – Present

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Editor

My work at 24editor (which is freelance in nature) involves editing English theses and other types of academic writing

Freelance

Aug 2021 – Apr 2022

Amstelveen, The Netherlands

Freelance Book Reviewer and Beta Reader

Write capsule reviews of recent independently published fiction and non-fiction. Write detailed Beta-reader reports for the work of new, unpublished authors.

Global Family Editions France SAS (legal successor of Reader’s Digest B.V.)

Aug 2014 – Jul 2021

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Fulfilment Manager / Customer Care Manager

Manage the complete order fulfilment cycle for Western Europe (specifically Benelux and France). Lead contract set up and negotiations with new Suppliers and clients. Manage new supplier-client connections by ensuring alignment of data processing formats, access to the Reader’s Digest mainframe and providing the Call Centre with the required software. Set up projects with new third party vendors, ensuring a structured change from company mainframe to application used by the vendor or contract negotiations to include additional tasks to the contract. Transfer customer information into the company’s fulfilment system (customer database, payment software). Perform user acceptance tests to verify that customer data has been transferred correctly from one system to another ensuring that the data and search algorithm is working correctly. Communicate with banks to ensure that SEPA compliance is maintained. Set up banking environments, customer database and payment processing system in accordance with SEPA compliances. Account setup with new bank contracts in the Benelux. Perform process analysis and promote continuous improvement for both internal processes and external vendor processes to meet and improve the quality standards. Coordinate the logistics and supply chain with third party product and service suppliers and streamline the end to end fulfillment process. Manage the selection of the external Customer Care Call Centre as well as contract negotiations with the selected Call Centre. Perform quality control on the Call Centre by checking the performance against SLAs, KPIs. System training for Customer Care Centre staff. Create and maintain Customer Service Policies and Service Level Agreements to ensure high quality customer care.

Reader’s Digest B.V.

Jan 2008 – Jul 2014

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Fulfillment and Systems Coordinator / Customer Care Manager

Provide detailed instructions for fulfillment printers, Warehouses and Customer Care. Present input for Call Center forecasting and marketing. Execute the Order-to-Cash flow, Customer Service and fulfilment activities. Create and maintain the Customer Service Policies and KPIs to safeguard the quality of customer care. Verify and approve invoices and process payments and refunds to vendors and customers. Act as a first point of contact to ensure processing of incoming/outgoing payments and all payment related issues. Prepare execution error reports for internal and external usage. Advise on improvements in ERP and Risk assessment of impact of new releases/projects for the ERP SCS+/Oracle/Mainframe. Lead user testing for new releases. Operate as Super user for Business Operation Support Systems and ERP software. Day to day problem solving, consulting and providing training support to various teams and offshore resources. Provide external/internal auditors with essential end to end case studies related to revenue, order-to-cash flow.

Education

University of Amsterdam

Aug 1997 – Apr 2000

Propaedeutic Diploma, Ancient Greek and Latin

James Douma

Copyeditor and Proofreader (English Language)

Skills

Languages