BE-ST - Key Persons
Abid is a recent graduate in construction project management from Heriot Watt University. He was a construction specialist for the SDME 2020 where our carbon neutral house was exhibited at the Dubai Expo 2020.
He gained experience in working as a project assistant retrofitting a grade II listed building in Newcastle to be used as an independent school.
When Abid isn't being a technical wizz and supporting our hands-on training programmes, he is reaching tour de France fitness cycling on his road bike.
Job Titles:
- Impact Manager
- Impact Manager - Retrofit
Alan brings over 25 years' industry experience in sustainable development and programme management. Since October 2021 Alan's role as Impact Manager, builds on his experience working and collaborating with a range of businesses, government bodies and funding agencies. His background includes previous roles in corporate businesses, public bodies, and freelance consultancy roles.
Job Titles:
- Head of Environmental Sustainability, Bell Group UK
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Founder and Managing Director of Winway Services and BPIC Network
- Professionals
Amos Simbo is the founder of Black Professionals in Construction. BPIC Network is a platform for black and ethnic minority professionals in the built environment to connect with other members of the industry, promote the industry as a good career choice as well as promote diversity among construction companies. After graduating from Loughborough University with a Mechanical Engineering degree, Amos has worked in the construction industry overseeing M&E services as a Technical Services Manager. With aspiration of fully owning his own M&E consultancy, Amos is passionate about maintaining professional standards and delivering service excellence.
Job Titles:
- Head of MMC
- Head of Retrofit Programmes
Caitriona is the Head of Retrofit Programmes is responsible for the implementation, oversight and delivery of retrofit programmes to accelerate the built environments transition to zero carbon.
Caitriona has well established networks within the connected ecosystem and is a chartered Architect who worked in the Built Environment education sector for almost 10 years with City of Glasgow College.
Since joining BE-ST in 2021 Caitriona has led Low Carbon Learning, Scotland's first national Passivhaus, retrofit and fabric first training programme which has upskilled over 3,000 delegates to date.
Job Titles:
- Head of Sustainability, McLaughlin & Harvey Construction Ltd
With Over 35 years' experience in construction, Carl's career started in Building Services. Here he served a Technical Apprenticeship before progressing into design and Operations Management.
The last 20 Years have been spent with Principle and Main Contractors, where Carl has been Head of Design, Building Services and Construction Teams operating throughout the UK. In Carl's position as Group Head of Sustainability, he is challenging the way the industry currently approaches and operates. Carl is driving innovation, a change in mind set, a whole life carbon approach and bringing sustainable and environmental governance to take the industry to net zero and beyond.
Job Titles:
- Head of Stakeholder Engagement
Danielle is responsible for BE-ST's stakeholder engagement programme which will create positive social, environmental, and economic impact and will focus on growing the BE-ST brand nationally and internationally. Danielle is applying her experience of developing BE-ST's event programme to deepen relationships with stakeholders and grow a new audience.
When Danielle isn't creating engaging events, she's teaching toddlers to toe tap and planning her next getaway.
Job Titles:
- Deputy CEO
- Deputy CEO at BE - ST
Douglas Morrison, Deputy CEO at BE-ST, has a career rooted in tertiary education, focusing on digital learning, innovation, environmental issues, and equity and inclusion. His professional memberships include the Young Academy for Scotland and a Fellowship at the Institute for Innovation and Knowledge Exchange. He is also a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Education Committee. Douglas holds vice-chair and assessor roles at South Lanarkshire College and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Education, respectively.
His engagement in the skills landscape extends to environmental initiatives, including co-chairing the Decarbonisation of Heat Group and acting as a Steering Board member of Scotland's Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan. Additionally, he co-chairs the Scottish Construction Leadership Forum's Data Group. Douglas has a masters degree in technology-enhanced learning and executive education from Oxford University, London School of Economics, and HEC Paris. He is currently undertaking an MBA with Quantic School of Business and Technology.
Job Titles:
- Impact Manager - Sustainability
Emma Church is responsible for delivering work within our Sustainability Team, with a particular focus on operational carbon and energy use in buildings. Emma leads on our clean heat work at BE-ST with an extensive knowledge and network with all elements of the clean heat technology and infrastructure space, including heat pumps, heat networks, thermal storage and direct electric heating. Supporting innovation is a passion of Emma's and has collaboration has been a focus of her career to date, coordinating and delivering on activities that bring all parts of the supply chain together. Emma is currently off on Maternity Leave and will be back with the team to pick up on all things clean heat in late 2024.
With 19 years' experience within the construction and the innovation realm, Fiona has delivered marketing, project management, and client management roles at a strategic level. She has experienced first-hand the challenges of the built environment and understands the significance of approaching business from a new perspective to deliver a successful return on investment. Fiona appreciates the importance of relationship management, and in turn, trust; she is committed to unlocking the potential of businesses in relation to innovation, whilst bridging the gap between private and public sectors for maximum impact.
Job Titles:
- Impact Manager - Retrofit
Gavin joined the Retrofit team as Impact Manager, having worked within social housing for the past several years. With extensive experience at senior level and an architectural background, Gavin, a Certified Passivhaus Designer, has contributed significantly to the design and refurbishment of numerous public buildings, along with strategic asset management and housing development. Committed to decarbonizing the construction and housing sectors, he is passionate about harnessing the positive impact of the Net Zero transition to improve the lives of everyone living in Scotland.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Technical Coordinator
Grace key strengths lie in board reporting, meeting preparation, minute taking, preparing presentations, and arranging travel both in work and personal capacity.
Job Titles:
- Technical Services Director, Balfour Beatty Plc
Ian is currently the Technical Services Director for Balfour Beatty's Scottish region. He oversees the design, digital delivery and temporary works for over £300million of civil and building projects across all sectors and scales from inception to successful project delivery.
Ian has over 30 years of experience in both consultancy and contracting, with a wealth of design, delivery and management experience aligned to an enthusiastic desire to improve the quality of our built environment. Looking ahead, his key focus is helping to drive forward change within the built environment.
Job Titles:
- Programme Performance Manager
Janette has over 40 years' experience within an operational support role, ensuring management systems are fresh and efficient, and buy-in is established not just for internal user benefits, but for our stakeholders as well. With a passion in digital transformation and data, she excels in simplifying the ask to accommodate the complexities of the demand, and quite honestly, our office or reporting would not run without her.
Jennifer is involved across a wide range of innovation projects across the digital, sustainability, retrofit and MMC thematic areas but has developed a specialism around sustainable and circular materials, waste reduction and reuse. Jennifer is also developing our relationships across the public sector supporting knowledge sharing, collaboration and innovation to accelerate the journey to a net zero future.
John joined CSIC in October 2021 mainly focussing on Procurement & Finance, review & maintenance of the IT Asset Register as well as providing Operations Assistance to the BE-ST team.
John joined the team from a private prison background where he gained experience of Contractual Compliance and Auditing, Finance Operations and Personal Assistant administration.
Job Titles:
- Sustainability Consultant at Atelier Ten
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Associate Impact Manager
- Impact Manager
Kate is an Associate Impact Manager within the Retrofit team and key to the delivery of our Low Carbon Learning, Passivhaus and Digital Construction Skills Programs.
With a background in large scale commercial architecture, and over a decade of experience in project management of community and Local Authority building projects, she has a deep understanding of the retrofit challenges faced by facility owners and operators.
Kaye is an Impact Manager within the MMC team. Starting her career as a teacher, Kaye has worked in a number of roles within the built environment including building conservation, traditional skills and qualification development. As an Impact Manager, Kaye manages programmes and projects that focus on delivering sustainable solutions that will help decarbonise the built environment. She also leads the BE-ST Post graduate scholarship programme, connecting Master's students with industry to work on real life challenges.
Job Titles:
- Head of Retrofit
- Head of Stakeholder Engagement
Kirsty is responsible for BE-ST's stakeholder engagement programme which will create positive social, environmental, and economic impact and will focus on growing the BE-ST brand nationally and internationally. Kirsty's experience is within developing skills programmes and digital learning design and will be using this knowledge to grow and deepen relationships with a focus on skills infrastructure.
When Kirsty isn't exploring and creating learning experiences for our stakeholders, she enjoys running and tasting her way round lots of different restaurants .
Job Titles:
- Project Manager
- Project Manager, Scottish Enterprise
Lesley works as a Project Manager overseeing the delivery of Phase 2 of BE-ST for Scottish Enterprise. Lesley has joined the BE-ST board-members as a stakeholder observer until August 2024.
Job Titles:
- Head of Programme Performance & Operations
Lisa drives transformational change across the construction industry and ensures performance excellence across BE-ST's programme portfolio. Lisa supports the work of all programme teams and assists in the development of learning opportunities.
With over 15 years' experience of working in finance in the private sector, Lorraine will be providing support to the finance team and the wider team at BE-ST. Lorraine specialises in analysis and is always looking for ways to make procedures more efficient. As well as working in finance, Lorraine has also worked as a Project Manager, combining her finance knowledge to help prepare budgets and finance reports to organising and delivering conferences for over 500 delegates in Canada and the UK.
Job Titles:
- Director at Turner & Townsend
- Performance and Data Analyst
Lorraine is specialised in research, data and analytics and has led teams in various roles within both the commercial property market and the public sector procurement space. Lorraine is passionate about innovation in the construction industry.
When Lorraine isn't being devilish with data and detail, she's focussed on her never-ending grand designs project - a labour of love.
As an Impact Manager on our MMC team, Louise is passionate about transforming the built environment. With a strong foundation in R&D, Louise has been dedicated to advancing modern methods of construction throughout her career, specifically through the wider use of biogenic materials in construction and adopting lean manufacturing techniques. Louise supports projects running through our innovation factory, and particularly enjoys anything mass timber related.
Job Titles:
- Head of Digital Programmes at Built Environment
Lynsey is Head of Digital Programmes at Built Environment - Smarter Transformation. Lynsey has worked in the built environment sector for over a decade and is a passionate advocate for positive change within the sector. She is an innovation expert who has successfully delivered projects in the fields of sustainability, healthy ageing, digitisation, equity and inclusion and retrofit.
She is a member of the Board at Loreburn Housing Association and Co-Chair of the Scottish Construction Leadership Forum's Digital Working Group. She is a past Chair of the Central Scotland branch of Women in Property.
Lynsey holds an MBA and has delivered projects on behalf of the Scottish Government, Transport Scotland, the Construction Leadership Forum and multiple private sector organisations.
Mark has 20 years experience within the industry. He is responsible for the management and delivery of MMC projects, and providing assistance, supervision and guidance to create impact and drive transformational change across the built environment.
Job Titles:
- Associate Impact Manager - Digital
Matthew works daily with new and emerging technologies in the Built Environment, including AI, Robotics, Data Capture and Visualisation. He specialises in digitally driven projects but has over 10 years of wide-ranging Built Environment experience. Including innovative and automated off-site construction methods, materials testing and software beta testing for parametric design-to-manufacture.
He is passionate about building and developing relationships with industry and public sector partners and has successfully established long term working and strategic partnership with a wide range of stakeholders. With a unique role, Matthew has deep knowledge of both industry and academic practice and has been developing long term funding strategy for private and public sector alike.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Impact Manager - Retrofit
With over 30 years corporate and governance experience including running her own business, Michelle joined BE-ST in September 2023 to provide high level executive support to both the Chief Executive officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer, as well as providing assistance to other members of the BE-ST team.
Michelle has a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience having worked across the public, private and third sector. Supporting C-level executives to strategise plan & run their business. Acting as a trusted advisor, creating a safe space, providing a listening ear & right level of constructive challenge.
Job Titles:
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Head of Programme Performance & Operations
Nicola has over 8 years of marketing experience within the built environment sector. Nicola is responsible for the management and delivery of BE-ST's digital marketing strategy including social media, websites and the ‘Accelerate to Zero' podcast.
She has been involved in the dissemination of multiple projects including Low Carbon Learning, HeatSource, Edinburgh Homes Demonstrator and BE-ST Fest. Since joining the team in 2021, Nicola has focussed on growing BE-ST's online presence from an audience of 50K to 107K and growing.
Job Titles:
- Innovation Consultant and Board Director
Pamela Bell is an Innovation Consultant and Board Director to a range of start-ups, Council controlled entities and commercial organisations. Her work is focused on innovative construction, affordable housing and added-value timber.
She founded PrefabNZ ‘the hub for innovative construction' in 2010 from her Master of Architecture thesis Kiwi Prefab which was also turned into a book and museum exhibition.
Pamela has been the lucky recipient of several awards including the Victoria University of Wellington Alumni Award (2019). She is an Adjunct Professor at VUW investigating the relationship between design thinking and business. Most recently she has become intrigued about the interface between design thinking and governance for the boardroom with a series of articles for the Institute of Directors.
Job Titles:
- Media & Communications Officer
Paula's focus is on engaging the built environment sector in our mission through the media, PR and thought leadership. Working closely with stakeholders across BE-ST and beyond, she tells the stories of the progress, impact, and innovation that is happening throughout Scotland's construction and built environment sector.
Rebecca has just recently joined BE-ST Team as an Events Assistant, she has a real passion for events and a solid background in Events Management. Rebecca studied events at University and College, where she gained valuable knowledge and skills. Over the past 2 years Rebecca has had the opportunity to work on various exciting projects from festivals, party nights and social events. Rebecca thrives in a fast paced environment and loves the thrill of bringing events to life and is looking forward to creating unforgettable experiences.
Job Titles:
- Digital Communications Officer
Ross works as BE-ST's Digital Communications Officer, covering external and internal communications to spread the awareness and impact of our work. He applies his experience and knowledge to develop our digital content and channels including newsletters, articles, case studies, social media and websites. He works closely with other members of the team to support the dissemination of projects and delivery of digital campaigns.
Sam brings over 25 years' experience in the construction innovation sector, leading the team on advancing industrialised construction, sustainable product development, and health & safety.
He has led multi-million pound projects which delivered demonstrators for the UK's first ‘homegrown' mass timber home and the classroom for GenZero - the Department for Education's ultra-low carbon secondary school programme.
Job Titles:
- Associate Impact Manager - Sustainability
Job Titles:
- Head of Citizen Engagement
Job Titles:
- Accounting and Finance Associate
Job Titles:
- Impact Manager - Sustainability