Children's audiobooks brand welcomes Oldham man to project

Ryan Williams, from Chadderton, previously co-founded and co-owned KOMI Group, a social media and marketing agency, before selling his stake in 2022.

Since then, he has been doing keynote speaking and consultancy work and earlier this year was nominated for Creative Entrepreneur of the Year for the North West at The Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards.

Now, Mr Williams' next step will see him team up with Emmerdale star Danny Miller and Capital FM presenter Nigel Clucas as they look to grow Albert's Bookshelf, a children's audiobook series.

This is Mr William's first major role since exiting from KOMI Group in 2022 (Image: Ryan Williams)

Albert's Bookshelf started out as Miller's gift to his son Albert, and the actor asked presenter Clucas if he could provide some recordings of the actor's son's favourite books.

Last year, the pair saw an opportunity to release the recordings to the world and are now on major platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Audible.

Mr Williams has been brought on board to help scale up with social media advisory and to help Albert's Bookshelf grow across the world.

He said: "I've waited a long time for my next project, and recently nothing has aligned, and this is the first external company I will be joining on an official capacity and I can't wait to see where we will take it.

"It is an excitable project and something I cannot wait to get involved in to take things to the next level."

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Mr Williams was working in the IT department at Manchester Metropolitan University while creating parody social media pages such as Deluded Brendan and Slow Sports News.

In 2016, he and two other men set up a company, which rebranded as KOMI Group in 2020.

Mr Williams left his IT job to run the content team at the company and in 2022, the group received investment from the investment company British Growth Fund, which led him to decide it was time to move on.

Miller, best known for portraying Aaron Livesy in Emmerdale, began following and interacting with the Deluded Brendan account in 2015 as he was a Liverpool fan.

Danny Miller won I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2021 (Image: ITV via PA)

Despite having interacted with each other nearly a decade ago, the pair only met face to face recently, and were said to have instantly hit it off.

Miller said he was "delighted" to have Mr Williams on the team, adding: "We have been wanting to make the appointment for a while as we searched for the right person.

"Never did I think we'd manage to add someone with Ryan's knowledge, experience and passion.

"It became very obvious, very quickly during our meeting that everything we are aiming to do with Albert's Bookshelf was something that was shared with Ryan and our vision is now clear going forward of what we want to achieve."