Judith Butcher: Honorary president
Judith Butcher is the author of Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge handbook for editors, copy-editors and proofreaders – the classic editorial reference in Britain and beyond. Having learned her editorial skills on the job at Penguin Books, she joined Cambridge University Press as a subeditor in 1963, becoming chief subeditor within two years.

The house manual that she compiled formed the basis of Copy-Editing, which CUP published in 1975. New editions appeared in 1981, 1992 and 2006. Judith Butcher was elected the SfEP's first honorary president in 1988.

David Crystal OBE: Honorary vice-president
David Crystal is one of the world's foremost experts on the subject of language and lectures to audiences throughout the world.

He is a prolific author with more than 100 books to his credit, including The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. In 2009 he published a linguistic autobiography, Just a Phrase I'm Going Through. His most recent books include Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language (2010), Internet Linguistics (2011) and The Story of English in 100 Words (2011). He has also been a consultant on, contributor to or presenter of numerous radio and television programmes and series.

Honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Bangor, and former president of the Society of Indexers, David Crystal was elected honorary vice-president of the SfEP in September 2004.

Gillian Clarke
A founder member of the Society, Gillian Clarke set up the Society's training programme and was its training coordinator for eight years. Having had the benefit of thorough on-the-job learning as an employee in publishing, she has always been keen that everyone should be able to access suitable training in order to work efficiently and happily.

She enjoys teaching proofreading and copy-editing to newcomers to editorial work, both freelances and in-house staff, and wrote the popular course from the Publishing Training Centre, Basic Proofreading by Distance Learning, now being revised for its fourth version.

Michèle Clarke
After leaving university with a classics degree, Michèle Clarke worked in special libraries before going freelance in the late 1970s as an editor, proofreader and indexer. After helping Norma Whitcombe set up the SfEP, she became its chair following Norma's death, and has also served as chair for the Society of Indexers. Her main areas of interest, apart from working on medical books, include quilting, walking, gardening and cookery. She now runs adult workshops in both her professional and interest fields.

Barbara Horn
An experienced editor and project manager, Barbara Horn has run editorial training courses around the world. She was one of the authors of the original National Occupational Standards in Publishing and, as the SfEP's nominee to the BSI, led the revision of the British Standard (2005) and the International Standard proof-correction marks. She is the author of the courses Copy-editing by Distance Learning and Editorial Project Management by Distance Learning and the corresponding books.

Naomi Laredo
A founder member of the Society, Naomi Laredo joined its first committee as secretary, later becoming PR coordinator, and was a member of the team that drew up the first code of practice. After a spell on the Accreditation and Registration Board, she returned to the committee in 1999 and served as chair from 2000 to 2004. During this period, the accreditation test in proofreading was introduced, and the Society adopted its current membership structure and admission criteria. It also became a limited company.

Kathleen Lyle
A founder member of SFEP, Kathleen Lyle served on the committee as membership secretary and then as chair (1996‐2000). She spoke at the first conference in Cambridge in 1990 and is now one of only two members to have attended all of the Society's conferences, where she regularly gives workshops on aspects of on-screen editing.

She is also a member of the Society of Indexers, the European Association of Science Editors and the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences.

Val Rice
Having trained as a bilingual secretary and subsequently retrained as a teacher of office skills and business studies, Val Rice also worked as an examiner of shorthand and office skills. Joining the Society in 1995, she was elected to the committee four years later as local groups coordinator and drew up the guidelines for them. She became treasurer in 2001 and introduced a computerised accounting system. She also acted as office manager and helped to set up the office at Riverbank House. Together with the then chair Naomi Laredo, she worked towards the incorporation of the Society and its relaunch as the Society for Editors and Proofreaders in 2003 and became finance director and company secretary. She was also a member of the conference organising committee between 2003 and 2006.

Val's booklet Starting Out: Setting up a small business, published in 2006, was the first in a series of SfEP guides. She is currently working on the 3rd edition.

Rosemary Roberts
Rosemary Roberts has worked in publishing since 1975, first as an editor on Grove's Dictionaries of Music, and thereafter in academic and reference publishing. She was chief copy-editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and in 2005 was awarded the MBE for services to scholarship for her work on that. She became managing editor at Thames & Hudson in 2007, where she gained experience of trade publishing ‐ a late and very interesting diversion from the academic field.

Alongside her in-house appointments, she has taught for SfEP, PTC and corporate clients, specialising in copy-editing skills and editorial strategies. She now works as a freelancer for Oxford University Press and other scholarly publishers, while continuing to teach.

Christina Thomas
Joining the Society in 1989, Christina Thomas was a committee/council member from 1999 to 2005. She was editor of the newsletter CopyRight and then the magazine Editing Matters for ten years, and oversaw the print version of the directory in 2000 and 2001. She has run conference workshops, chaired panel discussions and introduced speakers. Currently she delivers in-house training on behalf of SfEP as well as teaching three courses.

Christina began her freelance editing career in 1989, initially editing for publishers, then for non-publishers working on corporate brochures, newsletters and directories and websites. She is author of the SfEP guide Your House Style: Styling your words for maximum impact, and is a tutor for the Basic proofreading distance learning course run by the Publishing Training Centre.

Penny Williams
Penny Williams joined the SfEP in 1995 and from 1999 to 2008 was a committee/council member, during which (2004‐08) she served as chair. During this time, in-house training courses began; the Sue Thomson Foundation grants, the Professional Development Board and the C&G Licentiateship in Editorial Skills were set up; and an executive secretary was hired.

After various jobs, a lot of travelling and running a small business, Penny started her editorial career in 1985. With the help of excellent mentors, she learned her skills on the job. She specialises in economics, business and contemporary art.