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Catering for the future
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Gillian hunt,
chair
Gillian has been an educator for more than 30 years and started her career as a primary teacher. She held several leadership roles in schools before moving into the local authority in 2001 as Leadership and Management Development Officer. From there she took on the role of Academic Co-ordinator of the Chartered Teacher Programme at the University of Edinburgh. She returned to the City of Edinburgh Council in 2004 as Learning and Development Manager for Children and Families and held that role until 2016. During that time Gillian also served as a panel member on the Edinburgh Children’s Panel for five years and led the Scottish Professional Learning Network from 2014 to 2016.
Dismayed that in Scotland we are not meeting the educational needs of all our young people, that every year there are more than 3000 unemployed 16-year-old school leavers, Gillian decided to leave the Council in 2016 to see how she could help to change this. She now works as an educational consultant collaborating with third sector organisations, businesses and national organisations to support young people towards successful futures. Building on the trailblazing model of Newlands Junior College in Glasgow, Gillian is working to establish the junior college model in Scotland.
Gillian was a committee member of Scottish Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society (SELMAS) for almost 20 years, acting as treasurer for 8 years. She is currently a board trustee of the Children’s Parliament.
Gillian’s other interests include going to the theatre, walking her dogs, painting and spending time with friends and family.
john loughton bem, founder & vice chair
John is one of the UK’s most sought after and experienced motivational speakers and trainers. He is a social entrepreneur, equality rights campaigner and leadership coach. John ran his first campaign aged 11 despite facing a challenging childhood and went on to speak to over one million people, worked across 55 countries and helped raise over £5.5million for good causes. He is CEO of global leadership company Dare2Lead, which has trained over 60,000 people across 120 clients. He is also the Founder of Scran Academy.
As well as working for clients including Google, PriceWaterhouse Cooper and the UK Government, John has advised and supported on a range of diversity issues including co-chairing the Commonwealth Gender Equality Network, training LGBTQI activists ‘Rainbow Responders’ during lockdown and working with the UN Geneva office on the Sustainable Development Goals. As a speaker John has addressed The Whitehouse, UN General Assembly, TED Talk events and the European Commission. He was appointed by the Prime Minister to serve as a Commissioner on the Calman Commission and member of the National Literacy Commission. He has a strong voluntary sector background having worked in policy for leading youth charities in London and Edinburgh, as well as a number of trusteeships. He was also elected Prime Minister of the Youth Diplomatic Service at the G8 and G20 Summits in Washington DC.
stanley yau, treasurer
Stan serves Scran Academy as a Trustee, having first been involved with Scran from its launch in 2017. Stan works for an IT Consultancy based in Aberdeenshire in his dual role as the company’s Director and Technical Consultant – specialising in delivering Microsoft technologies to both small businesses and large corporates.
He is also engaged with a small number of voluntary organisations. For his sin of serving as Treasurer and Board Member for the Aberdeenshire Conservative & Unionists Association, Stan also spent 20 years as a member of JCI Aberdeen, representing both his home town and Scotland on the international stage of a global leadership organisation – culminating in serving as a Vice President for Europe in 2016. He now brings his technology, financial and leadership experience to Scran.
A keen debater (and former world champion), don’t let Stan corner you in the pub lest he bore you to tears with his personal passions of Pokémon, Japan, Xbox and his lifelong love affair of Microsoft!
Katherine hart,
secretary
​Katherine is a civil servant and lives in north Edinburgh. Prior to becoming a Trustee, she was a volunteer, working alongside the staff team and with the young people who attended.
Catriona oates,
trustee
Catriona has 30 years’ experience in education across primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. Originally a languages teacher, she moved into staff development in a number of roles and then became a lecturer in education at the University of the West of Scotland, where her role is to educate future generations of teachers.
She holds strongly to values of social justice in her work and life. Catriona's mission in her role as teacher- educator is to ensure her students are aware of systemic inequities and take action to mitigate them. As student teachers, she encourages them to bring fairness, insight, integrity, and sensitivity to their role in supporting young people in addressing and overcoming these challenges.
Outside of work, Catriona enjoys spending time with her family and exploring the beautiful Perthshire and wider Scottish countryside on her bike, sometimes paddleboard, sometimes in her hiking boots!
emma murray,
trustee
​Emma has worked in Financial Services for more than 20 years working mainly in banking and Investments. She started her working life as a volunteer with children with learning difficulties and has a keen desire to make things better. In her spare time Emma volunteers behind the scenes with various amateur dramatic groups. Sadly Emma says that cooking is not one of her skills but she’s learning!
paul barrow,
trustee
Paul has worked within Financial Services for over 20 years, where he supports the definition and execution of the business strategy. This involves developing business designs and operating models as well as informing and shaping the change management, governance and operational structures to achieve the required outcomes.
Since 2019 he has coached Social Enterprises, going through the Big Issue Invest selection process, in how to review and optimise their business plans and operations.
Outside of work Paul has a young family and is a keen cyclist, although he says he is progressively getting slower at chasing the boys and cycling as the years go by!
lindsay coulton,
trustee
A law graduate from Northumbria University, Lindsay started her career in a project management role. Three years later a 3-month sabbatical working with an international development project in Peru sparked a commitment to making a career change and the beginning of a fantastically fulfilling career in the charity sector.
Lindsay brings over 5 years of experience in the charity sector in Scotland, currently as a funder, and prior to that in fundraising for a number of Scottish national charities and also in organisational development for an Edinburgh based youth work charity. Lindsay is passionate about equality of opportunity for young people, and in valuing and developing all young person’s skills and abilities to allow them to fulfil their potential.
In her spare time Lindsay is a keen walker and enjoys spending time outdoors exploring the Scottish countryside with her family and her dog.