ASPEN PEOPLE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Victim Support Scotland National Chair
Job Titles:
- Network & Partnerships Entrepreneur, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
I've known Debbie in a professional capacity for some time now and have no hesitation in recommending her and her team for the professional range of services she delivers. Debbie's personal style makes her engaging and adds immense value to the relationships that are so key in the professional appointments field. I've worked directly with Debbie to secure my current appointment and can assuredly say with no fear of contradiction, how perfectly she matched the requirements she was tasks with from both my perspective and that off the other party. Should you need a highly connected headhunter or senior professionals recruiter, you could do no better than to work with Debbie and her team.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director Read Bio
Originally from Ireland, Catriona moved to Scotland in 1997 to work in the financial services industry before moving into a leadership and management capacity at various public sector tourism agencies. She joined Munro Consulting in 2009 specialising in senior public sector roles and extensively expanded her network into the not for profit and third sectors upon the establishment of Aspen People Ltd in 2012.
She is a qualified Accountant with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and has a Commerce Degree from University College Dublin.
Catriona has worked on numerous CEO and Director level appointments within the Third and Public sectors, in particular the NHS and social care. She also has vast experience of working on Board level appointment of Chairs, Trustees and Non-Executive Directors and in particular, has worked with a number of Boards where advice on recruitment strategy has been required to offer effective, values driven and fair processes. Her passion is for finding candidates with the best cultural match and person fit for an organisation. She is qualified in psychometric assessment and has also been trained in assessment centre design.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant Read Bio
A passion for people and for relationships brought David to Aspen and to the position of Consultant. Working with our team, our clients, and our candidates to deliver tailored executive search campaigns sensitive to the needs of all, David enjoys recruitment as a relationship-driven professional service.
With an M.A. in English Literature, David applies his research skills throughout the recruitment experience: from market mapping and client history through to the search process and into the final placement. He loves the variety working at Aspen affords and enjoys the learning opportunity that comes each new appointment.
David also lived in France for a year to teach English, is an avid golfer, and a qualified badminton coach.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director Read Bio
As Director, Debbie heads up the Interim and Third Sector divisions of Aspen's business. She is a highly experienced recruiter with more than ten years experience covering a wide variety of sectors.
For the majority of her career, Debbie has worked with Senior Leadership Teams on key appointments in the Executive and Non Executive space across a broad spectrum of Public, Private and Third Sector organisations. Although she has predominantly worked in Scotland, she has additional experience of working in London.
Debbie has a personal interest in the Third Sector and has been involved in a number of Charities as a Trustee herself. She is currently a Non Executive Director of the Scottish Refugee Council and former Chair of SAY Women, Former President of Scottish Women in Business and a previous Trustee of the Judy Murray Foundation amongst others.
Debbie is interested in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and how we can achieve this across the sector and in Boards in a meaningful way. As such Debbie is involved in a number of different groups who promote diversity and incusion and is always keen to chat about the subject.
Job Titles:
- Head of People, Scottish Canals
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director Read Bio
A co-founder of Aspen in 2012, Donogh is passionate about assisting people and a firm believer in going the extra mile in delivering a professional partnership service to both candidates and clients during and after each executive search campaign. Perhaps not surprisingly he began his career in the professional services sector, initially training as a CA.
Donogh has successfully transferred this industry's fundamental ethical values of integrity, transparency and trust into the executive experience, adopting the virtues of continuous improvement, added value and generating impact through the provision of governance and leadership appointments within public life.
Since 1995, he has been instrumental in the recruitment of senior individuals to executive and governance board positions across a wide variety of sectors. Donogh holds a joint honours BSc in Chemistry and management studies from Royal Hollow, University of London, he is a proud father & family man, active with outdoor pursuits and a reasonable golfer.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant Read Bio
Gillian works alongside and supports our sector clients, specialising in Education, where she sources quality leaders to provide our clients with exceptional talent, advancing their organisations. Skilled in managing the end to end recruitment process, she has worked in recruitment for a number of years in Scotland and Asia in both public and private sectors. She has gained knowledge and experience while understanding different nationalities, cultures, work ethics, working styles and businesses.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant Read Bio
Kate joined Aspen at the end of 2021 as a Consultant, and is now working predominantly within the charity sector. Alongside supporting the Directors, Kate manages her own assignments and provides executive search support to the emerging leaders level across our sectors. Kate is involved in assignment management and recruitment, including proposals, market mapping, search and supporting the interview process right through to final offer negotiations.
Prior to joining Aspen, Kate had always been interested in the third sector, volunteering in Ukraine, supporting students with additional needs whilst working as a teacher in Hong Kong and interning with two Scottish charities.
Outside of work, Kate is passionate about travelling, art and trying different local restaurants.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director - Research Read Bio
Katharine is an International Business & Language graduate from Newcastle University. After a successful career in marketing and administration, she joined a leading headhunting firm as a specialist researcher and has now gained over 15 years commercial and international research experience, nearly 10 years of which has been with Aspen. She is adept at conducting senior search assignments both in the UK and in Europe, together with due diligence research, corporate mapping and other related projects such as remuneration surveys.
Katharine has extensive public and private sector experience across all of the major functions and her industry experience includes Higher Education, Local Authority, Housing Associations, Agribusiness, FMCG, Aerospace, Retail, Manufacturing and Professional Services.
Having joined Aspen in 2014 to take up a graduate role, Kelsey qualified as a PRINCE2 Practitioner in 2016 and has since transitioned to become a key member of the team.
In her role as Client Partner, she supports Aspen's Consultants and Directors on the administration of recruitment campaigns from the initial research phase to eventual completion. This involves assisting with the administration of tenders, regularly communicating with both clients and candidates as well as organising advertising, social media, microsites and recruitment videos.
In addition, Kelsey arranges candidates assessment days and interviews and provides due diligence for the successful candidates throughout the entire process. She has delivered support across all specialist business sectors and many assignments have been at Chief Executive and Director level within the Public and Third Sectors.
Job Titles:
- Non Executive Director
- Non Executive Director Read Bio
One of the best known figures in the Scottish recruitment industry, Ken was a founder of Aspen People in 2012 and continues to act as Strategic Advisor in his capacity as a Non-Executive Board Member. Before entering recruitment he was a Chartered Accountant with international audit experience with KPMG before becoming Finance Director at the adventure clothing brand North Face.
Ken originally entered the recruitment profession in 1989 with London based Norman Broadbent, progressed to Lead Scotland and the Northern Region before launching Munro Consulting Ltd in 1998, which subsequently grew to the largest independent executive search firm in Scotland. Having sold the business, in 2012 he established Aspen People Ltd with his long term colleagues Donogh O'Brien and Catriona Mackie and later led the acquisition of niche recruitment firm, Fortnum Select.
Ken sits on the Board of several charities including Trades House of Glasgow where he is currently Deacon Convener and ‘Third Citizen of Glasgow' after the Lord Provost and Lord Dean of Guild. Additionally he is Non Executive Finance Director at Robert Burns World Federation.
Job Titles:
- Researcher
- Researcher Read Bio
Lauryn's role involves running a detailed and comprehensive search process upon brief, tailored to the specific needs of our clients. Lauryn's work focuses in Executive and Non-Executive appointments in the Charity/Third Sector at Aspen and she is passionate about using her extensive research skills to support our clients in this space. With a passion and deep understanding for the Sector and its challenges, Lauryn has held many voluntary roles, including most recently as Committee Member at Headway the Brain Injury Association. Lauryn holds a Master of Science in Applied Neuroscience and a Masters of Arts in Psychology from the University of Dundee.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director - Research ( Health & Care ) Read Bio
Lorraine is an Associate Director - Research (Health & Care). Qualifications include an MBA, M.Litt. Middle East & Central Asia Security Studies, also a qualified nurse, midwife and health visitor.
She has over 25 years' programme leadership experience internationally and in the UK within health and education sectors covering strategic reform, policy design and implementation, health systems strengthening and stabilisation. A confident and diplomatic communicator with excellent networking skills, she has extensive experience working for and with international NGO's/IGO's and Governments within Middle East, Central Asia, Afghanistan, North Africa, South Asia, South Pacific and Eastern Europe.
Lorraine provides innovative solutions to complex issues which can solve clinical recruitment shortages. She can build in house capacity where clinical leadership capacity is challenged; her research has helped successfully recruit senior clinicians and candidates at CEO/Director level for Health and Care organisations in Public, Private and Third sectors. She is an Honorary Fellow and Guest Lecturer in the School of Political & Social Science, a member of both the Global Health and Global Development Academies and a mentor for students in the Business School at the University of Edinburgh.
As a Client Partner within the wider Aspen team, Melissa provides essential support to the business by overseeing and carrying out all project management and administrative tasks relating to recruitment assignments and the administration of tenders.
In addition to performing this function, she provides a quality customer service experience to all internal and external clients in line with Aspen's long-established vision, values and behaviour framework. Over the course of several years, Melissa has supported individual and multi-recruitment projects for a vast array of public and private sector clients.
CIPD qualified, she also assists with all aspects of GDPR data governance, process control, communications and due diligence, ensuring that these are maintained at the highest quality levels and adding significant added value to our clients.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director Read Bio
Having worked right across the UK, including six years in London, Nigel has been a part of the executive search industry since 1994. Born in rural Galloway, where his home remains, his earlier commercial career brought 18 years in Agribusiness, working with some of the leading names of Agrichemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Animal Nutrition, and now provides executives search for clients within this sector. Since helping to found Aspen in 2012, Nigel has developed a specialist niche in Housing, where Aspen has earned a respected market-leading position.
Outside of work, he is a Board Member with Ancho Housing Association, which is a member of the Cairn Group. This enables Nigel to understand what it takes to run an RSL from the inside. He is also asked to provide insight on succession planning and attracting talent to the sector by the SFHA where he is a highly active Associate Member. In addition, Nigel is a mentor with RBS Entrepreneurs and also with Adopt an Intern - which helps develop and grow the next generation of business leaders.
Job Titles:
- Administrator
- Administrator Read Bio
With 30+ years of experience, my background and work experience are very varied and covers different aspects of administration and customer service; from working within the voluntary sector to the finance sector. Within these roles, I was able to develop my communication skills, ensuring that I convey sensitive information tactfully, and working in these different environments has allowed me to become flexible and adaptable. Throughout my extensive administrative experience, I have worked with individuals with additional needs, asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants.
I am bilingual and am an empathetic and friendly individual who sincerely enjoys helping others. I hope to bring all my years of experience, knowledge and skills to Aspen People to help provide a great service to everyone.
Job Titles:
- Digital Marketing Manager Read Bio
- Digitial Marketing Manager
As Digitial Marketing Manager, Scott works across our social media producing digital content. He has responsibility for designing and implementing Aspen's digital strategy for business development across all our social media platforms. He is the main person responsible for ensuring that Aspen works within our newly created brand guidelines, managing our website and SEO.
Scott has an MSc Digital Marketing degree as well as a BSc Computing Science degree. Outside of Aspen he enjoys playing basketball and is a Social Media Assistant for the British Basketball League.