Simon Busch - Editor
Simon took up editorship of the MSN Travel channel shortly after its launch in 2008. Since then it has become the most viewed travel website in Britain and been shortlisted three times for major industry awards alongside leading sites such as TripAdvisor.
Simon has worked in print, radio and online journalism for 14 years. Born in New York City, he grew up in Australia and began his journalistic career there as a columnist for the Australian newspaper and a broadcaster on the ABC station Radio National. Since moving to the UK 10 years ago he has written extensively for publications here and abroad including the Financial Times - as a columnist - the Guardian, the Evening Standard, the New Statesman, the Times and the Washington Post. He has also appeared as a commentator on various BBC and commercial radio stations.
Simon began travelling extensively since soon after he was born, and travel has long been one of his journalistic specialisms. Nowadays, he is increasingly keen on getting to the most inaccessible of places, partly because they illustrate what is so great about travel for a writer - that it is such a bountiful source of material. When not trying to get to Sao Tome and Principe or Kurdistan, though, he likes sitting in cafes in Trieste or, boringly enough, Paris. Travel photography is another of his interests and he has often sold photos to accompany his articles. You can see many examples of his work on his personal website, AroundtheBusch.com.
Poorna Shetty - Editor
Poorna is the editor of MSN Travel, along with Simon. She commissions new writers, writes features and takes part in the everyday running of the site, including finding the latest travel hotspots.
She has been a journalist and editor for eight years, working in print and online, for a variety of magazines, websites and newspapers. She studied English at Queen Mary University, where handily, lectures only started after 12pm. She has written for as long as she can remember, from travel diaries, angsty teenage poems to university newspaper columns.
Her first break was working as a reporter for a local newspaper, after which she moved into women's magazines, becoming editor of Asiana magazine at the age of 25. She then went on to work as travel editor for the London Paper, features editor for Grazia India and a magazine consultant for several titles; she subsequently worked freelance for the Guardian's travel pages, the Sunday Times Travel magazine, Sphere, Conde Nast Traveller India, the Daily Telegraph and the Observer, among other publications.
Throughout her career she has also been a regular contributor on BBC radio, as well as appearing on The Clothes Show, Sky News, BBC News and ITV.
Poorna has long had the travel bug but working on the travel pages at the London Paper cemented her love for it. "Nothing beats that feeling of turning up in a new place, just anticipating all the adventures, people you're going to meet and new sights you're going to see," she says.
Poorna loves adventure travel and anything that involves a new experience, but she also enjoys trips that involve doing very little - from hanging out on the beach to trying new wines. This does not, however, extend to camping of any kind.
Her top tip is: "Don't be afraid to travel on your own - some of my best trips have been solo."
Nicole O'Neil - Content Manager
Nicole O'Neil has been a journalist and editor for the past 11 years, writing across newspapers, magazines and websites.
She went to Bristol University to study English and loved it, but found herself inexplicably drawn to the world of fashion magazines when she should really have been analysing the innermost thoughts of the metaphysical poets.
Starting out on local newspapers, Nic did her training as a news hound before heading to the world of magazines at Emap, where she worked with editors and publishers from glossy titles such as Red and New Woman to the more specialist mags such as Motor Cycle News. But it wasn't until she landed a job at the Evening Standard's website, ThisisLondon.co.uk, that she first became a Life & Style Editor.
After two years at This is London, Nic went travelling around Africa and Asia. On returning, she learned all about the latest celebrity gossip as an Entertainment Editor for Orange before becoming the Life & Style Editor at MSN. 'To be able to work in a field that I absolutely love - and spend much of my spare time researching for pleasure - is a dream job,' says Nic.
