The Slow Newsletter – the slow goodbye

Good afternoon. Welcome back to Tortoise’s weekly Slow Newsletter – and one with some news from me.

Nearly five years ago I was at my desk overlooking Ave of Americas in New York when I took a call from James Harding. He wanted to know if we could meet for a drink when I was next back in the UK as he had a business idea he wanted my thoughts on.

Fast forward to Christmas 2017, at Little House, Mayfair. James shared his and Matthew Barzun’s plans to launch a new newsroom: Tortoise, dedicated to Slow News.

A few months later, having secured Tortoise’s first investors, James called to ask if I could help him find a CEO for Tortoise. I thought of a few names… but realised that I was going to be jealous of whoever got the joy of launching this new newsroom with James and Matthew – so, cheekily countered with the suggestion that I might be available as a “co-founder”. And here we are. We have spent the last four and a half years building Tortoise together. 

What you won’t know is that my cheeky offer had an expiry date on it.

I pitched the idea of coming on board for up to five years to get us started, help establish Tortoise, build the origins of a new sustainable newsroom before moving on… knowing we’d built the beginnings of a brand that would last 100 years, a newsroom fit to win the race. 

So now that time has elapsed, and I am now moving on from Tortoise. 

Timing is always a hard thing to get right but let me explain our thinking; we are at the beginning of the next chapter of Tortoise, so it's a good moment to herald in a new era.

We have successfully:

• Survived a pandemic(!)
• “Pivoted” – like all good start-ups – to be an audio first newsroom 
• Been no.1 in the UK and US podcast charts – selling our first hit to a global major streaming platform – (Listen now to Hoaxed – Alexi’s follow up chart topping pod) 
• Won a batch of awards – from Innovation of the Year for our ThinkIns, to countless gongs for our great journalism. 

Tortoise is established on the UK media scene, and is now truly at the starting line. 

We’ve written the prologue to Tortoise’s autobiography, or if we get as big as Marvel, you could say the ‘origin story’. I have done what I set out to do with James and it feels like the right moment to hand over the reins. 

So this is a slow goodbye, as I will be staying on the board and as an advisor until the end of the year – plus I might still write the occasional slow newsletter. 

I am so proud of what we have achieved to date and the team we have gathered who have made it happen – I cannot thank Team Tortoise, James and Matthew for the immeasurable joy they have brought me on a daily basis. I will be an active and loud Tortoise cheerleader forever.

For now, the team is heading back to where it all started this lunchtime – Little House, Mayfair, to celebrate an incredible four and a half years.

With love, a tinge of sadness but a huge amount of pride...

Katie