I've been independent for over a year now. This is the first time I've named it publicly.
Some of you knew. In late 2024 I shared that my role at AstraZeneca was being made redundant — and that I was treating it as a positive, values-affirming experience. I meant that.
But I didn't announce what came next. What I had was a question: across fifteen years of producing documentaries, building video series, advising CEOs, working with PhD scientists and agency leaders across four continents — what is the actual work I keep getting asked to do?
So I spent a year finding out. I took on projects, said yes to things that felt right, and paid attention to what they had in common.
Every engagement started the same way. Someone had a story worth telling — a scientist's legacy, a company in transition, a complicated subject that needed a human entry point — and no clear plan for how to produce it. Not the messaging. The actual narrative: who's the audience, what do they need to understand, and how do we build backward from there?
That was true when I produced a feature documentary about José Baselga at AstraZeneca. It was true when I created Ask a Scientist during the pandemic. It was true when I was building a health practice from scratch in Singapore for Edelman.
The work has a name: Story Production. And the practice has a name: J. M. Kay.
I'm still working out what this looks like. But over the next few months I'll be sharing the process, the methodology, and some of the projects that shaped how I think about narrative.
If you've ever had that moment where you realized the work you'd been doing for years finally had a name — I'd love to hear what that was.
#storyproducer