Speakers

Brian Weaver

CEO, HISEZ

Brian Weaver was appointed CEO of HISEZ in July 2008. He graduated from Stirling University in 1975 and worked for a multi-national pharmaceutical company before falling in love with the Highlands and one of its natives. He then found himself paying the mortgage by working for 20 years in the finance industry, 3 years as a partner in a small specialist sawmill and 5 years as Business Starts Manager in Highlands and Islands Enterprise. He brings to HISEZ a wide experience of private sector management and finance which is combined with knowledge of social enterprise gained by 10 years in Alness Credit Union. He is still married to the same Highland native and has one son who, with any luck, will graduate from Stirling University in 2009.

Karen Anderson

Programme Co-ordinator, Acquiring Business 4 Good Programme, Social Firms Scotland

Karen is responsible for the delivery of the Acquiring Business 4 Good programme's outcomes to the Big Lottery. These include deal managing at least ten acquisitions of private businesses by social enterprises, promoting business acquisition as a model for growth in the third sector throughout Scotland and developing partnerships with private sector professionals to support the programme. The programme began in January 2009 and will end in June 2012.

Karen’s experience within social enterprise includes supporting Social Firms in the Eastern Region of England, developing and managing a social enterprise franchise license, being interim CEO of Social Enterprise East of England, creating and delivering the Social Enterprise Management Certificate for Cambridge University, serving on the board of Social Firms Eastern Region, Social Firms UK and Social Firms Scotland, and delivering training for CCDA, Businesslink, Institute for Social Entrepreneurs and SFUK.

Barry Ayre

Chair, Firstport

Barry is the current and founder Chair of Firstport, which supports new and emerging social entrepreneurs across Scotland. Barry has coached and worked with senior management in the US and the UK since 1985, with clients from both start-up and growth businesses. He is also a founder trustee of Scotland UnLtd – which distributes funds to individual social entrepreneurs throughout Scotland – and Vice Chairman of Columba 1400, a leadership centre on the Isle of Skye. Throughout his business career Barry has adopted a twin-track approach, applying lessons from his involvement in the commercial sector to his lifelong commitment to the voluntary sector and vice versa. His proudest achievement is leading the financial turnaround of Children 1st (RSSPCC), Scotland's oldest childcare charity, from 1996 to 2000.

John Bird

Founder and Editor-In-Chief, The Big Issue

John was born shortly after WWII in slum-ridden Notting Hill, London. Homelessness, orphanages, crime and prison characterised much of his early life, until his metamorphosis into a successful small businessman in the 1980s.

Since setting up The Big Issue magazine and foundation to help the homeless help themselves in 1991, John has become an authority on motivation and the ascent to achievement. He has spoken at the UN in New York, given talks in Nairobi, Istanbul, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace and has received the UN Scroll of Honour, an MBE and the 2005-06 Beacon Prize for Creative Giving.

John's latest venture, Wedge Card, is a loyalty scheme aimed at revitalising the local high street. The card gives shoppers discounts at hundreds of independent businesses while raising money for local charities. For further information, visit www.wedgecard.co.uk

Naomi Johnson

Executive Director, Firstport

Since 2007 Naomi has been Executive Director of Firstport, which supports new and emerging social entrepreneurs with start-up money, business support and practical resources through its new ‘office in a box’. Firstport currently delivers the Social Entrepreneurs Fund in Scotland - run as a joint programme with Scotland UnLtd – to distribute the Millennium Awards Trust money. Last year Firstport distributed £575k to 107 individuals across Scotland, dealt with over 1000 enquiries and around 420 entrepreneurs’ one-to-one appointments with new starts.

Naomi started out in social enterprise in 1998 as Operations Manager for Network Recycling – specialising in recycling and waste management at outdoor events. Since then she has gone on to run and be involved with a variety of business support and investment programmes in the social enterprise sector. She ran the business support programme alongside a £35m lottery programme for waste and recycling enterprises and developed support programmes in four of the English RDA regions.

Donald Mackenzie

Business Gateway Services Manager, Business Gateway

Donald has had a varied career in the public, private and voluntary sectors, specialising in human resources and project management. He spent 12 years in public sector management, eight years in the construction industry and, prior to becoming the manager of the Business Gateway service for Highland and Moray, six years managing the European Social Fund for the Highlands & Islands. Donald has worked as an adviser to the Estonian Labour Market Board as well as working in Slovenia, Sweden and Denmark. He is also a director of MacDug Music Limited – a music publishing and record company based in the Highlands.

Steve Rowan

Director of Solutions, Highland IT Support Ltd

Steve is a director of Solutions for Scottish Business Ltd and Highland IT Support Ltd, and has been working independently as an IT Consultant for over ten years. He is a Specialist Business Adviser in IT & eCommerce for Highlands & Islands Enterprise as well as the Business Gateways in Highland, Moray, Orkney Islands, and Shetland Islands. He is also a Business Mentor for the Chamber of Commerce, and is on the Advisory Board for Down-To-Earth Community Interest Company.

Alison Smith

Associate Tutor, Social Enterprise Academy

Alison has been a tutor at the Social Enterprise Academy for the past four years. Her day job is as Director of Allanpark Consultants Ltd, an organisation she established eight years ago to deliver strategic planning, organisational development and knowledge management services. Prior to this, she worked in the public, voluntary and education sectors as a housing and community regeneration specialist. Alison is committed to helping organisations identify and build on their strengths, and she delivers this through her work with the Academy and the Intellectual Assets Centre. She has supported over 100 organisations, mostly social enterprises, to review and strengthen their business. She is a non-executive director of Forward Scotland and Dress for Success (Strathclyde) and is a member of the Ethics Girls Co-operative.

John Sutherland

Supported Employment & Innovative Projects Manager Scotland, Leonard Cheshire Disability

Since 2000 John has worked as Supported Employment and Innovative Projects Manager Scotland for Leonard Cheshire Disability, covering the Highlands, Islands, Grampian and Moray area, where he supports people who are facing barriers due to a disability or health condition either to gain paid employment or to remain in a current job. For over 17 years John has managed a range of government ‘Supported Employment’ programmes in a ‘person-centred’ manner. These programmes are designed to support people with a disability or health condition, through a structured process, leading to the creation of an individually designed support package, agreed in partnership with the individual and the employer.

In addition he is Chair of the Highland Employment Network and Highland Diversity Awards, member of a cross-party working group on disability for the Scottish Government, a company director with the Scottish Union of Supported Employment and a member of the British Association for Supported Employment.

Antonia Swinson

Chief Executive, Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition

Antonia joined the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition in November 2005. She is an award-winning business journalist who has written for both UK & Scottish national newspapers, including the Sunday Express and Daily Express, and for six years she wrote the weekly Passing Comment business column in Scotland on Sunday. A long-standing champion of social enterprise, she has also been involved in small business policy formation at senior level. Antonia is a former Chairman of the Society of Authors in Scotland and has written five books including Root of all Evil? on business and ethics. Most recently her popular Allotments Tales gardening column for the Scotsman became a book published in 2008: You Are What You Grow: Life, Land & the Pursuit of Happiness.