Frances Gordon
Co-founder of Simplified, South Africa
Frances’ career started in rural South Africa where she worked on educational materials for community development projects. In 1995, she moved into the corporate sphere, where she held tenures at Datatec as communications strategist and at London-based Siegel & Gale as Senior Content Strategist and Head of Content, Europe and Middle East.
Frances has worked on communication and content strategies, as well as documents and websites, for blue-chip companies such as Capital International, Barclays Life, NatWest, and Royal Mail. South African clients include Discovery, Liberty Group, MMI, the Western Cape Provincial Government, and Alexander Forbes.
Frances sat on the board of the international plain-language organisation PLAIN (Plain Language Association InterNational) in 2010. She is part of the IPLWG (International Plain Language Working Group), which comprises international experts working to professionalise the field of plain language. She also contributes as an expert adviser to IC Clear, an EU-funded initiative for a post-graduate qualification in clear communication.
In 2005, Frances co-founded Simplified, a training and consultancy firm based in Johannesburg and Lisbon. Its services include simplification and content strategies, plain-language and content audits, rewrites of legal and other content, and training. The Simplified training course has been used to train over 4000 professionals in Africa and Europe.
In 2015, Frances began a new role as Senior Content Strategist for Barclaycard, UK. She remains passionate about clear communication and believes that without it, good customer service is simply not possible.