Our People

David was born in Dundee and went to school at Blackness Primary and Harris Academy before going on to university. A Chartered Surveyor by profession, he worked for a multi-national property advisory company at the Director level and now has his own consultancy operating UK-wide. His ancestry goes back over two hundred years in the city and includes forefathers who worked in the jute industry. David is also an accomplished polar adventurer, having skied to both the North and South Poles and has taken part in several other remote area expeditions, too. Consequently, he has a strong interest in and knowledge of polar history. He is also currently a Trustee of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

Richard Neville is a journalist with extensive experience in the Scottish media. He is a director of the media and communications consultancy Neville Robertson Communications Ltd. He was previously the Head of Newspapers for DC Thomson Media, overseeing The Courier and The Evening Telegraph in Dundee and The Press and Journal and The Evening Express in Aberdeen, as well as The Sunday Post. He previously edited both The Courier and The Press and Journal.

Richard is passionate about helping to drive change in Dundee and devised and launched the successful Courier Business Awards to help celebrate success across the region. Richard is also a board member of Creative Dundee and a member of the Fundraising Board at The Maggie’s Centre in Dundee.

Previously Richard was Editor of Business a.m., the critically acclaimed Scottish daily business and political newspaper that closed in 2003. He has also been Deputy Editor of The Scotsman and worked as a reporter for The Daily Record and Edinburgh Evening News, and ran the newsdesk of the York Evening Press.

Angus is currently Group Finance Director of Star Refrigeration, the UK’s largest industrial refrigeration engineering company. A graduate of Dundee University and Chartered Accountant, training with KPMG at their Royal Exchange offices in Dundee from 1992 to 1997.

Angus maintained his connections with Dundee over the next 6 years whilst working with Low & Bonar across head-office, divisional and business unit roles as his industrial experience developed. International roles followed over 10 years with the Howden Group in the heavy engineering sector, including 4 years as European Industrial Fan Division MD, developing customer relationships for business expansion as well as turnaround and M&A projects.

Norman brings a wealth of business experience in the offshore maritime sector and by way of some background, his recent industry focus has been as Director General of the UK / European subsidiary of the Offshore Marine Construction Group COES which has a primary business stream supporting major capital projects in the Renewable Energy Industry. He also holds a number of other non-executive Director and Trustee type roles and he is the current Board Chair of RICS (Scotland). He is and he is also a member of Cross Party Scottish Parliament Renewable Energy Group at Holyrood.   

Norman’s professional experience spans over 30 years split between the traditional construction, engineering renewable energy, oil & gas and offshore power wind sectors.  He has held senior management positions and worked for top FTSE, NYSE and JSE listed companies in the UK, Europe, America, Canada Sub-Saharan, South Africa and the Middle East.  In addition to his ongoing industry commitments, he is also a Visiting Professor for the School of Architecture & Built Environment at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen which he supports on a pro-bono basis. He is passionate about the upskilling and development of others.   

Alison is originally from Dumfries but moved to study at the University of Dundee in 1991, before joining NCR as a customer service engineer in 1992.

She left her role as manager of a software engineering team at NCR in 2006, when she was recruited as a fundraiser for the newly established South Georgia Heritage Trust. Alison became CEO of the Trust later that year.

Over the next decade under Alison’s leadership the South Georgia Heritage Trust successfully eradicated rats and mice from the island of South Georgia – the largest project of its kind ever undertaken – at a cost of £10 million, almost all of which the Trust raised from private sources.

Alison was recently awarded an MBE for services to conservation.

Will is an elected member for the SNP within Dundee City Council. After leaving school he went on to higher education studying hospitality at Inverness College and worked for a number of years in the industry. He has since gone on to work for a major utilities company in a variety of roles. He became a Councillor for the then Eastport ward in 2003 and has been proud to represent the East End ward in which he lives since 2007. Will has been the convener of the City Development committee and is currently the convener of the Planning Committee.

Alastair was born in Dundee, was educated at Dundee High School, then Croftinloan School, Pitlochry and the Glenalmond College. He completed his further education at Dundee Institute of Technology. As the 4th Generation in the family business of H&A Scott Ltd, Dundee, established in 1856, Alastair started as a Management Trainee, working in all Departments from the Jute Spinning Mill, through the Weaving Company to the modern Polypropylene Extrusion Plant in Glenrothes. He worked through different supervisory positions and became Managing Director in 1980.

H & A. Scott Ltd was sold in 1984, when Alastair left to set up his own manufacturing textile plant in Monifieth, AG Scott Textiles Ltd. He was asked at that time to run a sister company Agripac, manufacturers of flexible intermediate bulk containers in Dundee. In 1988, Low and Bonar plc bought over the company and Alistair was appointed Managing Director of Bonar Textiles. In 1992 after a company restructure he took over as International Sales Director of the Textile Group with plants in Dundee and Belgium and offices in the USA, China and Holland. Alastair remained in that position until he retired in 2009, travelling worldwide selling artificial grass, carpet and technical yarns to all continents.

Professional Memberships include:
Association of Jute Spinners and Weavers
European Association of Textile Polyolefins
British Polyolefins Textile Association
Synthetic Turf Council of the USA
Federation of Intermediate Bulk Containers Association

Dundee Community involvement includes:
Following his father as a Prize Sponsor at Abertay University
Past Deacon of the Weaver Trade of Dundee; 1980-1990
Past Deacon Convenor of the Nine Trades of Dundee; 1991-1992
Trustee of Dundee Heritage Trust
Chairman of the Friends of Dundee Heritage Trust
Past President of the Rotary Club of Dundee
Chairman of Dundee Alexandria Twinning Association
Vice President of the Dundee and Angus Boys Brigade
A Burgess of the City of Dundee

Lorna is a partner in the Private Client team at Blackadders in Dundee.  She has over 20 years of experience in the private client field.  She gives advice on all areas of private client including wills, powers of attorney, administration of estates, inheritance tax planning and creation and administration of trusts. 

Lorna regularly presents to the public and the profession on trusts and trust compliance and is a speaker with MBL Seminars.

Lorna sits as a Trustee on a number of charitable trusts and is a board member of Tenovus Tayside & North East Fife.  She is a former module organiser and tutor on the Diploma in Legal Practice at Dundee University and a former examiner for the Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners.

Stuart Cunningham is an observational Physical Oceanographer specialising in ocean measurements for climate studies. He began his career in 1990 with the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Deacon Laboratory as a research assistant in the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, then at the James Rennell Centre, Chilworth, Southampton. From 1995-2012 he worked at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. He is now a Professor at the Scottish Association for Marine Science and the University of the Highlands and Islands. He has led 35 research cruises as Principal Scientist around the world’s oceans. Since the early 2000s Stuart has focused on purposefully designed mooring arrays. He was an originating Principal Investigator and led the RAPID field programme for ten years. He is now a Principal Investigator in the subpolar OSNAP programme for observing and monitoring the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

The AMOC is a central component of Earth’s climate and moves heat and property fluxes around the globe. One of the major predictions of climate change in the 21st Century is a slowing of this circulation and this will have profound impacts on how Earth’s climate changes. He was one of the three PIs who proposed RAPID mooring array programme (https://rapid.ac.uk/) and he managed the array from 2003-2012. He now is a PI as part of the international OSNAP programme (https://www.o-snap.org/) measuring the AMOC from Newfoundland to Greenland to Scotland. The goal of these arrays is to provide the fundamental observations of the changing AMOC so we can better understand the physics of the circulation and to constrain models of climate.