Bill
Howat
Chair
Bill's career includes experience as an academic, civil servant, Chief
Executive of an all purpose council, chair of a national voluntary body,
and consultancy. He has in-depth knowledge of the theories and practice
of public finance; considerable experience of European matters; and has
been deeply involved in the development of Best Value in Scotland.
Bill also has extensive experience of change management. Bill has a very effective
consensual approach to leadership forged in his spell as chair of the seven European
Funding Monitoring Committees in Scotland
Bill’s recent work for SOLACE has included mentoring a chief executive, carrying out a survey of Scottish council chief executives, and advising a professional body on the 2007 Spending Review. He was also an independent adviser on Reform of Local Government in NI, led a team of independent experts that reviewed the budget performance of the Scottish Executive (published May 2007), Choices for a Purpose, also known as ‘the Howat Review’ and chairs Volunteer Development Scotland.
During 2008 in addition to his support of MJI's professional services clients, he has led a team that piloted a new approach to reviewing council budgets, advised a Scottish Council on its economic development function, and was interim Director for Strategy & Performance at the Scottish Police Services Agency for 3 months..
Beth
Brewis Non-Executive Director
Beth worked for Forth Sector for six years. Latterly she
managed the Forth Sector Development team as Head of Division and
then Managing Director. Having left in 2010 to pursue other interests,
Beth still serves as a non executive director of the business.
Before joining Forth Sector Beth ran her own small businesses,
so she has a good understanding of the challenges involved. She has
worked in the private sector in tourism promotion and development,
the public sector in local government tourism services and in the
NHS in mental health services. Beth has worked with established and
emerging social enterprises to help them build capacity, look at new
business ideas and assist with organisational change.
Beth has a BA (Hons) in Humanities and an ILM Level 5 Certificate
in Understanding Social Enterprise and is a graduate of the Edinburgh
Common Purpose Leadership Programme.
Mike
FinlaysonMD
Mike is the Chief Executive of Forth Sector and the Managing Director of FSD. Mike has extensive cross-sector experience. His early career was in retailing as Store Director for Debenhams plc and then Operations Director of department store group SMCS. He has worked in business development in the UK with SMEs and larger corporations and managed two venture capital funds, CVCS and SCEIF plc. In recent years he has worked mainly in the third sector and in social enterprise, as Retail Adviser to Oxfam, Director of Community Business Scotland, Director of Employee Ownership Scotland and Director of the UK Cooperative Council, as well as Director of Development for the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). Mike has also experience setting up and developing social enterprises and charitable organisations in Scotland and abroad and has extensive research experience in the field of employability. He has advised the Scottish Government and Edinburgh City Council on employability issues and a number of ‘blue chip’ corporations on corporate social responsibility.
Mike’s areas of expertise are: business strategy, organisational development, change management, regeneration, mental health and employability, social enterprise development and corporate social responsibility. He has advised companies including BT, Sainsbury and Scottish Power on community benefit issues.
Fraser
Millar
Operations Director
Fraser leads a team of consultants
active in the fields of procurement and commissioning, impact measurement,
business support to the third sector and employability. Fraser is an experienced
project manager and has project managed delivery of a number of high profile
Scottish Government projects, as well as advising a number of Edinburgh based
Housing Associations and the Scottish Government’s Employability Learning
Network Forum on the use of community benefit has developed a guidance manual
on the subject. Fraser has also authored publications for commissioners of
public services on working with the third sector, and procurement guides
and reference materials for third and public sector audiences.
Will McLean
Will is an experienced project manager
with a passion for increasing and improving the third sector’s interaction with
the public sector in Scotland. Will leads on FSD’s engagement with public sector
commissioning and uses his experience to encourage and facilitate successful
tender bids from the third sector.
Will’s areas of expertise are: community benefit in commissioning with knowledge in outcomes focused purchasing, Community Benefit Clauses, Public Social Partnerships and co-production; stakeholder engagement and outcomes monitoring tools; and tendering for third sector organisations.
Penny
Morriss
Drawing on over 10 years experience
working within communications companies both in the UK and Japan as a senior
account manager and learning and development specialist, within quality and customer
experience, Penny provides strong commercial awareness to the understanding of
impact measurement and performance management support to both third and public
sector clients. Penny’s areas of expertise include; commissioning for impact
with knowledge in outcomes focused purchasing, social impact measurement, outcomes
in performance management for commissioners and service design; stakeholder engagement
and outcomes monitoring in service delivery and design; impact measurement and
evaluation for third sector organisations.
Emma
Vallance
Emma has particular expertise in supporting organisations to undertake stakeholder
analysis and engagement, and in the selection and application of outcomes monitoring
tools within projects and services, and has contributed to the development of
key resources for social impact measurement which include the SROI Project bank
of outcomes indicators. Emma has undertaken stakeholder engagement with organisations
throughout Scotland promoting the use of social impact measurement for commissioners,
funders and third sector organisations.
Since joining FSD Emma has worked as a social impact assessor and is presently engaged in the development, maintenance and marketing of the Social Impact Scotland web resource.
