Lesley Mitchell Expand I am currently Head of Human Resources & Office Services at The Royal Town Planning Institute, a professional membership organisation and charity. My HR experience has been in the NHS, leisure management and professional membership. Over the last 20 years my roles have covered a broad range of areas from TUPE transfers, employee relations, mergers and re-structures to facilities management, health and safety, wellbeing, culture development, performance management and learning and development initiatives. My voluntary roles in the past have included Governor for a large academy for girls and leading historic walks in London.
Steve Earl Expand I design and co-design collaborative strategies that bring together the partners that need to work together to create long-term impact, In the technology sector I work with combining government, industry and universities to create long-term strategies. I also use collaborative strategies with local communities and other communities of practices to help bring out their collective intent and help them create their own future development plans. I am also involved in education projects that encourage thinking and participation, helping to create an ethos of learning and creativity, including the Non-Fiction Science project that focuses on finding the science errors in movies, correcting for them and then remaking the movie with the new changes!
James Nicol Expand Mentor with the Scottish Chamber of Commerce providing support and advice to a variety of businesses within the Scottish community. The objective is to focus on early stage businesses to develop and realise potential.With core skills in investment appraisal, my career has spanned financial, business and third sectors at the executive level but a personal milestone achievement was taking over a family business and building up performance to allow a successful sale to existing staff.An initial voluntary appointment as Chair of Prince’s Youth Business Trust Glasgow was an introduction to the third sector and that has been expanded to work with a number of organisations helping to adopt the Social Enterprise culture whilst focussing on individuals and families progressing their expectations and lifestyles. Additionally assisting and encouraging business to achieve accreditation and success in the not for profit arena provides a great deal of satisfaction.Relaxation usually means a trip to hills and mountains in local and foreign parts in the company of like-minded individuals and with a family in north east England opportunities to visit and explore locally with them.
Piotr Zieliński Expand Piotr’s passion for working with computers began in 1986, when the Internet was still in its infancy and when he was introduced to an Apple IIc. His first computer-related job was in software engineering and architecture in 1998, during which he facilitated a company-wide systems transition ahead of expected complications caused by the year 2000 bug. His work while in the US includes financial application development for the US Department of Transportation and building an election results analysis system for USA Today’s 2012 Presidential Election live internet feed. Following his move to Edinburgh, Scotland, his roles have expanded to leading the development departments for several startups, including Money Dashboard and Lettingweb as well as to building and managing IT teams while maintaining passion for hands-on software development and education. In his spare time, Piotr enjoys volunteering. He’s been a volunteer firefighter, a mentor for students from CodeClan, and he participates in the Independent Custody Visitor scheme.
Francis Galashan Expand Francis has occupied leadership roles in the private sector for over 30 years within organisations of varying sizes while working in the United Kingdom, France and the United States. He currently chairs a registered charity which develops apprenticeship programmes in heritage engineering and chairs another grant-making charitable body. He has had extensive experience over the years as a recipient of various therapeutic approaches ranging from the esoteric to more mainstream and is a bipolar sufferer.