The Captioning Studio Management Team
Nari Jennings, Co-Founder, The Captioning Studio
With a strong family history of genetic deafness, Nari Jennings is a passionate and active advocate for access and inclusion for people with a hearing loss.
As an 18-year-old graduate of the Queensland University of Technology, Nari began her career as a trainee Federal Hansard Reporter. She progressed rapidly to management level and was described as one of the Department’s ‘most outstanding acquisitions’. Nari furthered her studies at the Australian National University before training and working as a television captioner in Sydney.
An ardent Francophile, Nari re-located to Europe in 1998, where she worked for several years as a realtime court and deposition reporter for a multinational company, enabling her to fulfil a dream of working and studying in Paris.
An accomplished stenocaptioner, Nari competed in two World Intersteno Shorthand Championships in Europe, ranking 7th and 5th respectively in 2001 and 2003.
Nari has trained numerous captioners around the world and has developed the leading ‘FASTTRACK’ captioner training program – the first and only one of its kind in the world.
In 2004, Nari co-founded The Captioning Studio to pursue her infectious passion for access and inclusion for people with a hearing loss through the provision of high-quality captioning.
A lover of the performing arts, Nari has been particularly instrumental in the development and growth of theatre captioning in Australia. Nari is the Chairperson of ATCAG, the Australian Theatre Captioning Advisory Group.
Alex French, Co-Founder, The Captioning Studio
A graduate with a 2-1 in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Loughborough University, England, Alex joined BBC Television Projects in 1989 as an Engineer before moving to SysMedia Ltd in 1994 as a Project Manager, then taking a new role of Subtitling Business Manager. He has an excellent grounding in all aspects of broadcast technology and processes, together with extensive IT experience.
In his role for BBC Television projects, Alex managed system trials for the UK Audetel (Audio DEscribed TELevision) project in the early 1990s, and helped to develop advanced transmission systems for teletext and other VBI data.
Between 1998 and January 2004, Alex had responsibility for the captioning/subtitling systems business within SysMedia, which supplies complex high-value software solutions to broadcasters and post-production companies worldwide. He was responsible for product management, sales and support activities.
Alex’s role with The Captioning Studio encompasses sales and marketing, developing new IP, system design and managing development projects ranging from a full captioning/subtitling workstation, through to automation systems, workflow and the TCS branded websites.
