Speakers

Alison joined the team at the Chamber on 1st November 2014 as Chief Executive Officer, and owns businesses within Dundee.

She is passionate about business and the local community, and is working with partners to lead the development of the Regional Invest in Young People Group in Dundee & Angus. This employer-led group is being set up in response to the Wood Commission for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce, and will see the co-ordination and strengthening of engagement of employers in the agenda, to enable our region’s young people to move into sustainable employment.

Alison is also President of the Association of Scottish Businesswomen, and works with partners to support Scottish Government on their Women in Enterprise Framework Agenda and Action Plan.

Alison sits on the Dundee Partnership Management Group, the Enterprise Advisory Committee for Dundee & Angus College and leads the Chamber engagement with Angus Council. She has just spent the last year as a member of the Fairness Commission in Dundee and believes passionately in equality and fairness for all.

Dr Cat Macaulay had a 25 year career in the private sector, third sector and academia prior to joining Scottish Government to build user research and service design capacity and capability in central government. Her career has led her from co-founding Scotland’s first LGBTI café to Operational Director of a $1.25 million UNHCR funded emergency aid project in the Balkans War  to designing and leading an Masters in Design Ethnography. Her PhD combined anthropology and computing and she has taught, published, lectured and consulted in human-computer interaction, service design, and design ethnography in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, India and across Europe. Her team’s mission is to ensure that public services are designed with and not just for their users.

Steven currently manages Dundee City Council's transformation programme and corporate improvement team. He is also the programme lead for the Council’s digital transformation project, leading in developing their digital strategy and engaging with other local authorities throughout Scotland on digital collaboration.

Passionate about culture change and developing ways to engage organisations in new ways of thinking, Steven is leading a new initiative to use service design techniques throughout the council to better design new and existing services.

Tom has recently been appointed as Interim Head of Economic Development at Perth & Kinross Council for two years while David Littlejohn has been seconded to lead the Tay Cities Deal.

Prior to that, Tom served as Executive Director Place for Blackburn with Darwen BC in Lancashire where he drove the delivery of an ambitious growth strategy to deliver jobs, homes and secure income streams. Before joining BwD, Tom held the strategic policy lead role with Oxfordshire County Council, established the Local Transport Board, acted as Programme Director for the City Deal and supported development of the Growth Deal. Tom also served as the Corporate Director for Environment, Planning and Economy for Cornwall Council from March 2009 to May 2012.

Tom was the SRO for the Superfast Cornwall programme and has undertaken Smart City work in Oxford and Lancashire before moving to Perth to support its Smart City ambition as part of the Scotland 8th City initiative.

Tom holds a Doctorate and Honours degree in Civil Engineering specialising in Traffic Simulation & Transport Modelling and also Postgraduate qualifications in Coaching Psychology. He is one of the few Chief Officers who has served in Local Government to have also held political office, having been an elected member for 10 years (1984-93), holding a number of portfolio roles including Leader of Bradford Council.

Tom’s home is in North Berwick, East Lothian and he resides in Perth during the week. He is married to Leona and has three daughters and five grandchildren. He is a Scouser by birth, an avid Liverpool fan and holds a season ticket to Anfield.

Paul is Skills Planning Lead at Skills Development Scotland, and has lead responsibility for the national skills agency’s strategic relationships within his city region and for oversight of key sectors including digital/ICT. Paul has worked in economic development in Scotland for 25 years, both as an independent consultant and with leadership roles in Scottish Enterprise, CSV and the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. His non-executive directorships include Digital Xtra, Scotland’s pioneering digital skills charity.

Catherine is the Development Manager for the Federation of Small Businesses in the North East of Scotland region, representing 6,000 self-employed and business owners across all sectors across Perth & Kinross, Dundee, Angus, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray.

John leads on all policy and communications in Scotland for Smart Energy GB including engagement with all Scottish political representatives and key stakeholder, advocacy bodies and media.

John has many years of experience working in media relations and public affairs for a variety of organisations such as Historic Scotland, Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, VisitScotland, and Digital UK. He is a fluent Gaelic speaker.

Thomas currently works for The Data Lab, the Scottish Innovation Centre for Data Science; prior to this he spent sixteen years in the Oil & Gas Industry, ten years of which were overseas in senior management roles with multinationals and start-up companies. Thomas enjoys working with businesses and supporting them to grow further. In his current role he facilitates and develops collaborations between Industry and Academia that generate economic growth in Scotland.

Peter McColl leads Nesta's policy and research work in Scotland. His work focuses on the opportunities to integrate and adapt Nesta's work for Scotland. He has particular interests in intergenerational politics, higher education, health, citizens' income and participatory democracy.

Before joining Nesta, Peter was Director of the Policy Unit at Common Weal - a think and do tank committed to transforming Scotland. He has worked for the Royal Voluntary Service, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and in the Scottish Parliament. He was Rector of the University of Edinburgh from 2012 to 2015. He chaired Transition Scotland Support, the infrastructure organisation for Transition Initiatives in Scotland from 2008-11. He holds an MA (Hons) and MSc both in Geography from the University of Edinburgh.