QUALITY SCOTLAND - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chief Operating Officer
Andy Kerr is a motivated and experienced professional with an interesting career history, from local government to Scottish Government, taking in on the way the setting up of various social enterprises, working as a business consultant and working at senior levels in the private, public and third sectors.
Andy is the Chief Operating Officer of the Piper Group and former CEO of Sense Scotland, a charity and social enterprise with its roots in working with and supporting the deafblind community in Scotland. The Piper Group is an innovative charity launched in order to accelerate change in improving the lives of disabled people and the dedicated staff who care for them. The Piper Group delivers and shares the costs of innovation, leadership, digital, property, procurement, ICT, HR, finance, legal, and project management, within an overarching Group structure. This means each member charity can reach even more disabled people throughout Scotland, and can invest more in the staff teams who provide excellent quality care and support.
Andy as Chair of Quality Scotland is enthused by the opportunity to play an influential role in the continuing journey of making excellence a national characteristic of Scotland and his whole working career has in some way or another been connected to his own personal journey towards excellence and quality in the organisations that he has worked in as a quality practitioner, as an advocate and as a senior decision maker.
Andy served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament for East Kilbride from 1999 until 2011, and in that time was the Convenor of the Transport and Environment Committee, Finance and Public Services Minister and latterly Health Minister, during which time the NHS achieved the lowest waiting times in the history of NHS Scotland and the first ban on smoking in public places in the UK was introduced.
Andy is married to Susan, has three grown up daughters and enjoys football (mostly watching), running and cycling as well as food!
Job Titles:
- Learning and Development Business Partner
George has responsibility for co-ordinating and managing the research and innovation activity across all aspects of Scottish Water's business. Part of this role is horizon scanning to determine emergent opportunities and threats to the way that Scottish Water provides its service to the population of Scotland. George has 20 years' experience in the water industry with roles in process design, capital project, programme management and quality regulation across Scottish Water and its predecessor organisations. In a previous role George was actively involved in the development and installation of the early membrane water treatment systems that provide high quality drinking water to large parts of rural Scotland. George is a non-exec board director with Quality Scotland and represents Scottish Water in UK Water Industry Research, including sitting on the quality panel.
Job Titles:
- Training and Development and Communications Manager
Katherine is a former Head of Membership Support and Strategic Partnerships at the Institute of Directors Scotland. She is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
She brings a wealth of experience to the board as a business development, marketing & public relations professional. With in-house senior management experience as a consultant and a university visiting crisis PR lecturer, she has acted for businesses based in Scotland, UK, Europe and the US.
Katherine was a UK Marketing & Communications Manager for an award winning retail jewellery chain, Director of independent PR agency Bright PR for over 13 years, and before that PR Manager at international auctioneers Christie's.
She lives in the west of Scotland with her husband and has three sons. Loves sailing round Scotland and the Med, playing golf and cooking for friends.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Change Programmes Leader
Liam is Change Programmes Leader in Wheatley Group, Scotland's leading housing, care and property-management group. He is a Member of both the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development and the Chartered Institute of Housing.
A change management professional, Liam has worked with Wheatley and it's largest subsidiary, GHA, since 2002. Through his time there, Liam has worked in Human Resources, Strategy Development, Quality Assurance, Performance Management and service development, through the development and implementation of a wide ranging welfare reform mitigation programme.
Liam is a qualified EFQM assessor and has led and been part of a number of EFQM assessments, including in Scotland and Europe. He played a key role in GHA winning the 2017 EFQM Global Excellence Award and supports companies across the group in their accreditations journeys, including Customer Service Excellence and Investors In People.
Job Titles:
- Online Product Development Manager
Nick Shields has over 20 years experience working in both SMEs and multinational manufacturing firms such as Polaroid, Digital Equipment Corporation and Gas Measurement Instruments.
Nick's experience has been gained through senior management roles in several areas such as: operations management of high volume FMCG where he was responsible for restructuring the global manufacturing operation across US, UK and Far East, Engineering manager in a capital equipment manufacturer responsible for CAD/CAM implementation and a green-field factory build, new product introduction and product development within the electronics industry and management of a number of change management programmes using lean and 6 sigma techniques.
Nick joined SMAS at Scottish Enterprise in 2007 and was appointed director of SMAS in June 2011.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Chief Executive at ELCAP
Paul White is the chief executive at ELCAP, which provides services ranging from a few hours support a week to round the clock support to 140 people whose ages range from pre-teens to 80's.
In addition to his role on the board of Quality Scotland, Paul is;
Rhona is a qualified Brand & Marketing professional with experience across different business types. She enjoys a proven track record in driving significant performance improvement, through capability building and engagement at individual, team and organisational levels. With 36 years' experience in all aspects of Brand, Marketing and Organisational Development her roles have spanned leadership, management and consultancy within world-class companies.
Rhona currently works with BNY Mellon Investment Management as their Brand & CX Director. Previously she enjoyed working for Marks & Spencer, Standard Life, RBS and KPMG.
Ru Hamilton has over 25years experience in operations, lean and quality in manufacturing and financial services sectors. His career began as a chemical engineer working for Unilever in fast moving consumer goods and subsequently for ICI in speciality chemicals. Following a year break to complete an MBA at Cranfield, Ru then moved into banking with the Royal Bank of Scotland where he has worked in both the retail and corporate sectors.
The vast majority of Ru's career has been in helping businesses deliver better value to customers through operational excellence, whether through process redesign, leadership training, performance management systems or business operating model design.