Digital Economy Briefing 

Colin was appointed Director of Economic Development in Scottish Government in 2021.  Prior to this he spent over four years as Director Digital, responsible for delivering Scotland’s national digital strategy, including work on the digital transformation of the public sector and public services, Scotland’s data strategy, digital connectivity and the IT shared services used by up to 16,000 public servants in Scotland.

Colin started his career in marketing within the packaging and chemical industries.  He then joined Royal Mail, eventually becoming marketing director of the £4 billion core letters business and enjoying a spell as Assistant to the Chairman and Chief Executive of The Post Office.  He first joined Scottish Government in 2003 as Deputy Director,  Public Health, where he led the consultation that led to the smoking ban and then Deputy Director, Healthcare strategy and planning.  Prior to joining digital, Colin Spent four years on secondment to Cabinet Office / MOS as Marketing Director, British Army Recruitment where he introduced an award winning online recruiting process

Colin is a Vice Chairman of the Royal Caledonian Education Trust and a former trustee of The Poppy Factory.

Ivan McKee was appointed Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise in May 2021. 

His career has involved a number of senior roles in manufacturing and business, managing companies in the UK as well as Poland, Finland, Croatia and Bosnia. 

Ivan has been MSP for Glasgow Provan since May 2016. He was previously the Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation. 

The pandemic has shown us what can be achieved when organisations across the public, private and third-sector align behind a common goal and shared values. SCDI is unique in uniting all three for an economy, which enables people and nature to flourish. Chief Executive, Sara Thiam works to brings sectors and industries together to build a better economy for Scotland. Sara is a former Director for the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in Scotland and member of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland. She has held a non-exec roles including Construction Scotland Innovation Centre.

Sara’s career in economic development includes the Glasgow Edinburgh Collaboration Initiative and EU knowledge transfer projects designed to stimulate Scottish innovation.  Her early career in international education included the setting up of the Eurodesk youth information service subsequently replicated throughout the EU. Sara holds a BA (Hons) in modern languages from the University of Stirling.

Dr Jacqueline Redmond is the Chair of CENSIS, Scotland’s Innovation Centre leading on the accelerated development and deployment of IoT, sensing and imaging technology.  Jacqueline has over 25 years international experience in senior positions championing technology innovation.   To this end, she is also the Executive Director of PNDC, focused on supporting innovators develop technology that will revolutionise, digitalise and decarbonise the energy, heat and transport sectors.  Finally, Jacqueline is a member of Board for the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB), where she helps the team to think creatively on how to deliver the Net Zero mission.

Paul became the CEO of the Scotland 5G Centre – the national centre for the acceleration of the deployment and adoption of 5G in Scotland – in May 2020 and has quickly made his mark on the 5G ecosystem. He is passionate about mobile telecommunications and delivering socio-economic benefit to a broad range of stakeholders to enable digital connectivity.

Previously, as founder of his consultancy practice, Paul advised both private and public-sector organisations on major strategic initiatives, taking advantage of the latest wireless capabilities to develop coherent plans to deliver organisational goals and increased business value.

Paul began his career on the first graduate training scheme run by Orange, now EE, and rose through the company to become head of strategic development. There, he played a key role in establishing the UK’s first deployments of 4G services in rural communities.

He was recently recognised as one of the Connected Britain Top 100 influencers.

Professor Peter Mathieson MBBS(Hons)(London), PhD(Cambridge), FRCP(London), FRCPE, FMedSci, FRSE assumed the office of Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh in February 2018.

Peter Mathieson was born and educated in the United Kingdom. He went to a state grammar school in Penzance, Cornwall and was the first member of his family to go to university. He read Medicine at the London Hospital Medical College and qualified with First Class Honours from the University of London in 1983. After junior medical posts in London, he obtained a research training fellowship from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to study at the University of Cambridge. He was awarded a PhD by the University of Cambridge in 1992. He became Director of Studies for Clinical Medicine at Christ’s College, Cambridge following his PhD. After a further MRC fellowship he moved to Bristol in 1995 as the foundation Professor of Renal Medicine at the University of Bristol and Honorary Consultant Nephrologist, North Bristol NHS Trust. In 1999, he was elected to Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2021 he was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Ashley Lumsden currently serves as Director of Government and Public Affairs, in charge of Huawei’s UK strategy for relationship building with the UK Government, Parliament, and Regulators.
Over the past 4 years at Huawei he has worked with colleauges in the UK, Brussels and Shenzhen Headquarters to develop solid strategic relationships with policy-makers, regulators, advisers and legislators, and has worked with international organisations such as the OECD and UNCTAD.
As part of his work at Huawei, Ashley serves as a member of the CBI’s International Advisory Group, is a board member of the Commonwealth Telecoms Organisation and has joined the Business at OECD delegation to the Committee for Digital Economy Policy.
Before joining Huawei, Ashley was Special Adviser to the then Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Sir Vince Cable in the UK Coalition Government and prior to that was an adviser on finance, transport and infrastructure policy at City Hall, London. Ashley studied Mathematics at Imperial College London.

Kim McAllister is a freelance journalist and communications consultant at Connect. She presents Clever About Cash on BBC Radio Scotland and contributes to a number of BBC shows including Radio 4’s Inside Science. She regularly writes for the Herald and other business titles. Since the pandemic hit, Kim has been involved with a wide range of events online, from chairing the three day annual international conference of the British Occupational Hygiene Society to hosting business recovery webinars for the Herald. Her space podcast series “Scotland’s Secret Space Race”, which she made with the University of Edinburgh, is the no 6 physics podcast in the UK and she is currently working on a special edition.