Leaders in Scotland
Leaders in Scotland Thought Leadership Lunches
Speaker Details
Ethics and leadership Thurs 9th Feb Karen Carlton
Resilience and leadership Thurs 8th March Caroline Donaldson
Functions of Leadership Tues 10th April David Watt
Confidence and leadership Tues 8th May Ros Taylor
Sustainability and leadership Tues 12th June Fran van Dijk
Creativity, leadership & innovation Tues 10th July Joe Lockwood
Psychopaths and leadership Tues 11th September Mary Turner Thomson
Karen Carlton - Public Appointments Commissioner
Karen’s career spans both the public and private sectors in the UK and abroad. Her early years were spent in the health service and the hospitality industry. A need to see some of the world before she settled down took Karen to Australia, where she worked with the Government of Victoria during the creation of their Industry Training Commissions. On her return to Scotland Karen worked in a number of senior HR roles; she was, for example, the first director of Investors in People Scotland and created Scotland’s IiP assessment and recognition framework. Karen moved to a position as Managing Director of an organisation development company, then set up her own business, providing HR and organisation development services. As part of her portfolio, she became one of the independent assessors who monitor Scotland’s public appointments process. She was appointed as Commissioner in June 2004.
In her role as Public Appointments Commissioner for Scotland, Karen works closely with the Commission for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland and she published the code of practise for how the Scottish Government makes public appointments. She is also a member of the appointments panel for the BBC Audience Council and a non-executive director of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
Caroline Donaldson - Director, Kynesis
Caroline is a founding director of Kynesis and an experienced executive coach and facilitator of senior teams. Her background combines over 20 years of consultancy, various senior management positions at Granada Group including personnel, training, sales and regional management and at Mothercare plc where she progressed from a graduate trainee to Store Manager. She has extensive experience of working with senior teams and cascading that work through the business. Some of her clients include Centrica, The Tavistock Institute, NHS, Oracle, KPMG, British Heart Foundation and Aker Kvaerner. She is a member of the CBI Scotland Council, Institute of Directors, EMCC, CIPD, and has worked with over 100 organisations in private, public and voluntary sectors.
Amongst other things, her current work has involved developing resilience for leaders, coaching executives across a variety of business sectors at both Chief Executive and Director level, and managing the mentoring programme for IOD Scotland. Caroline is also a Non-Exec Director for Link Group and The Arches.
David C Watt - Executive Director, IoD Scotland
David C Watt, Executive Director for the Institute of Directors in Scotland, has a background of running his own business for over ten years – a consultancy focussed on individual and organisational development, particularly in the sport and leisure industry.
David spent two and a half years leading Scotland’s Millennium activities and celebration, encouraging a range of partners to contribute £11.6 million to the festivities for people and places throughout Scotland in the year 2000. He also has extensive experience in both the public and voluntary sectors.
On a personal note, he is a keen golfer and follower of rugby, with a non-party interest in politics and current affairs.
Talented and committed directors are vital to the nation’s prosperity and David is enthusiastic about the role the IoD can play in representing, developing and providing for its members to the benefit of them, their companies and so Scottish economy and industry.
Ros Taylor - MD at The Ros Taylor Group
Ros is a leading UK Psychologist, successful businesswoman, an accomplished author of six books, TV and radio presenter, and was voted one of the UK's top ten
coaches by the Independent on Sunday newspaper.
Having trained as a Clinical Psychologist and worked in the NHS where she was responsible for a number of path breaking initiatives, Ros ultimately found the lure of the private sector irresistible. She was in the vanguard of those with the vision to see how the principles of psychology might fruitfully be applied to the practice of business. For over twenty five years she has coached leaders and taught leadership skills. Her business experience has included development work with Mobile North Sea, Solectron, NatWest Bank, McKinsey and SCI Europe.
Ros has broadcast on many radio and television programmes. She was one of the three key presenters in `Confidence Lab' for BBC2, a six-part documentary in 2001. Her book Transform Yourself outlines the principles which provided the basis for Confidence Lab. The book of the programme is called Confidence in Just Seven Days and topped Amazon's bestseller list. Fast Track to the Top, a book about success and how to achieve it was published in January 2002. Her most recent book is "Confidence at Work". Ros also took part in the BBC1 series `All the Rage' which reviewed theories of anger and gave her an angry person to change in a day. That book is still to be written.
Fran van Dijk - Partner at One Stone
Fran is a Partner at One Stone advisors, an international consultancy delivering sustainable business value and helping multinational companies in pharmaceutical, IT, consumer goods, services and other sectors to pioneer more sustainable practices.
Fran’s passion is building a strong business case for sustainability.
A strategist who has spent over 15 years working with leading companies to demonstrate the benefits of sustainability, she’s an expert in turning risk into opportunity. Formerly a senior consultant with SustainAbility Ltd, Fran has advised companies including BT, Dow Europe, Gambro, Holcim and Royal Dutch Shell. In 2010, she was part of the ENDS Carbon team behind the FTSE CDP Carbon Strategy Index Series. Fran was also a board member for 7 years at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, the UK's largest land use research institute.
Fran heads up One Stone’s business case, strategy development and carbon management work. One Stone recognises there are challenges: in the changing business landscape; Growing population; A shift to new economies; and the Climate in crisis and scarce resources. They also advocate this is an opportunity: To rethink markets, products, strategy and supply chain; To build trust, purpose and partnership; and To show leadership by doing business better.
Joe Lockwood - MBA, Programme Director, Centre for Design Innovation
As Programme Director, Joe heads up research and business development at the Centre for Design Innovation and takes a lead role on research projects looking at the application of design innovation in business. Joe has over 15 years experience in business start-up and strategic change management. He has worked extensively in the film industry both nationally and internationally and specialises in building strategic partnerships. Before working with creative industries, Joe was involved with SME’s in the construction industry. He is a contributor to strategic networks in industry and the public sector, speaking regularly about innovation and knowledge exchange.
Joe is part of the team delivering the "Cultures of Innovation" programme that supports businesses to develop the creative leadership, employee engagement and innovation to support sustainable economic growth in business.
Mary Turner Thomson - Author and Motivational Trainer
Bio coming soon.