Lucy Rook
Managing Director
BlackRook Academy
Lucy is a journalist, entrepreneur and founder who has worked in training, broadcasting, fashion and online content production for 20 years.
She’s Director and partner-owner of the BlackRook companies: BlackRook Media, BlackRook Academy, BlackRook Productions and – in Africa – Enterprise BlackRook.
Lucy’s main focus in 2024 and 2025 is all about continuing to build the reach and impact of our BlackRook Academy training business.
She’s the company’s Managing Director, leading our team of industry lecturers and support staff.
Contracted to partner with City Of Wolverhampton College to provide Digital Skills Bootcamps for the West Midlands Combined Authority, the Academy offers free social media content creation training across the region for the unemployed and offers heavily subsidised rates for those in work looking to expand their skillset.
Our entire team’s efforts are aimed at supporting each learner and their ambitions. That’s all about listening to them and advising on realistic goals. That’s a daily commitment from us that runs alongside the skills training we provide and involves regular one-on-one support outside of the classroom setting.
We work hard to achieve positive employment outcomes for all of the candidates. We are pro-active in pursuing advertised and emerging vacancies on behalf our learners. Everyone who joins our bootcamps is guaranteed a job interview for a live opportunity – thanks to our ever-growing network of employer contacts. That’s helped by BlackRook’s membership of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce where Lucy is a member of the judging panel for the Chamber’s annual Business Awards and also Chair of the Women in Leadership Group,
Lucy’s worked at ITV’s Good Morning Britain as a producer and served as an advisor to the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ Examinations Board. As a trainer, she’s coached all of the BBC’s digital editorial apprentices across the UK over six years and also taught post-graduate NCTJ students at Bournemouth University.
She’s been a producer for ITV News in London and at ITV Central in Birmingham, Nottingham and Leicester. Lucy’s worked internationally too, leading teams as an Executive Producer for the African broadcaster ARISE News, working in the UK and South Africa.
In radio, she was a producer for Janice Long on BBC Radio 2 and early in my career also worked at BBC Radio WM.
She developed video journalism skills in camera work, editing and packaging while working as a producer for the British Forces Broadcasting Service and developed a Group-wide video strategy for MNA – the UK’s biggest regional publisher – where she was Managing Editor.
