Our board

Angela McCusker

Angela has over 30 years’ experience working in the private, public and third sectors. After qualifying as a chartered accountant, she worked in the sports industry for 15 years, initially as Financial Controller for Reebok UK Limited and latterly as International Finance Director for Ellesse International Limited, part of The Pentland Group plc.

Since leaving Ellesse International, she has developed a portfolio of interests, including Non Executive Director positions. She was an NXD for 6 years at The Student Loans Company; 10 years at Electoral Reform Services Limited(the UK’s leading provider of election services).  In 2014, she was appointed Chair of Dundee and Angus College; a large further education college with over 1.000 staff and around 20.000 students. This was a Ministerial appointment, also involved being appointed to as a NXD to the national organisation, Colleges Scotland. Angela has also served on the Board of Firstport – a charity which supports the start-up of new social enterprises.

In 2013, she completed her Masters in Mindfulness.  She developed a Mindfulness for Leaders programme and works with leaders and teams throughout the UK  where participants find the programme transformational.

Angela worked for many years as a brand and strategy consultant for HarrisWatson Plc, including with the Board at Lyle and Scott. In 2007 she successfully set up and managed Pilotlight – a social enterprise brokering mentoring between the private and voluntary sectors. Her portfolio included executive coaching and consultancy across a wide range of companies including restructuring and turn arounds.

She has been a volunteer on the Visiting Committee at Saughton Prison; has mentored young people transitioning between state care and independent living; is a volunteer driver with East Lothian Foodbank; and a facilitator/trainer for senior team members of social enterprises in Kenya.

Dr Adam Burley

Dr. Adam Burley is employed by the NHS Lothian Psychotherapy Department, and works as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Edinburgh Access Practice, a service dedicated to the provision of care to individuals who struggle to access mainstream care. He also provides input to wide range of public and third sector organisations across the homeless sector in Scotland. He graduated from St. Andrews University in 1994 with a psychology degree and a large overdraft, and worked at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London before embarking on clinical psychology training in Edinburgh in 1998. He then moved to the east coast of New Zealand, establishing a clinical psychology service in a rural district working with marginalised populations. He returned to Scotland in 2005 to develop the Homeless Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy Service which he currently runs. He also works with Health Scotland around early years adversity, and is a board member at Community Justice Scotland. He has a particular interest in health inequalities, exclusion dynamics, early years, and the psychology of adversity. He is obsessed with collecting Munros, 20th century glass and steel frame bikes from the 1980’s.

Katy Hetherington

Katy has worked for NHS Health Scotland, a national NHS Board focused on tackling health inequalities since 2006. As part of her role on child and adolescent public health, she is leading work with a range of partners on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). This includes shaping action which will contribute to a Scotland wide movement on the prevention of ACEs and to a more informed response in policy and practice. Prior to working on child and adolescent public health, she led national work on public health’s role in the prevention of homelessness in Scotland and co-authored the Scottish Pubic Health Network’s Report on health and homelessness. Katy was also involved in the health sector’s contribution to Scotland’s National Action Plan on Human Rights and continues to have an interest in how a right to health approach can bring action on health inequalities.

Alastair Clarkson

Alastair is a qualified actuary and past Chair of the Life Board of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. He has 30 years’ experience in financial services and currently works for Standard Life Aberdeen, where he has held a number of senior executive positions across Finance and Risk. In his current role as Business Risk Review Director he carries out independent review and challenge of new areas of strategy and key strategy enablers. Alastair brings to the Board extensive experience of the development and implementation of risk management frameworks. Outside work, Alastair enjoys spending time outdoors with his family, hill-walking in the summer and skiing in winter.

Nicola Thomson

Over the past 25 years Nicola has worked with a diverse range of global brands, from famous sports brands to pet food giants, from skin care experts to the life and pensions business, and most recently the worlds of whisky and entertainment. From an agency and client side, she has focused on brands and their reinventions, managing this both internally and externally, from strategic repositioning through to successful implementations and the delivery of robust marketing and communications programmes. From 2015, Nicola shaped The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo Strategy for Growth. As the business looked to move from being an iconic Edinburgh event, to a global events company, branding, marketing and communications supported and delivered to this strategic ambition. Prior to the Tattoo Nicola managed Standard Life’s global roll-out of the new brand and its refreshed visual identity. Nicola is also a long term leader for The Princes Trust and facilitates the Explore Enterprise Programme for Young Entrepreneurs.

Jill Roulston

Jill is a qualified accountant and chartered tax advisor, currently working for The Royal Bank of Scotland. Prior to this she held roles with a Big 4 accountancy practise as well as leading a Finance team in a third sector organisation. Jill brings to Venture Trust 20 years’ experience in Finance roles as well as a good understanding of charity accounts and the challenges faced by the third sector.

Hugh McGregor

After graduating from university with a degree in Biology, Hugh commenced work in social work, gaining a professional qualification in social work. Since then he has had a career in social work of 45 years, from a basic grade social worker and then management roles of senior social worker, ending up as a senior manager in the Justice section of the social work service in South Lanarkshire. Hugh has had a career interest and specialism in working with offenders, in particular violent offenders and from the start of the MAPPA process he was the chair of MAPPA meetings for South Lanarkshire council. From this time, he also headed up a small unit managing both sex and violent offenders.

Catherine Lindsay

Catherine has over 20 years’ experience in the finance and energy sector and is currently Head of Strategy for the Commodities team at Wood Mackenzie. She previously worked with their Consultancy team where she focussed on advising companies on their growth strategies and internally on corporate and integration strategy. She has recently worked with start-ups in the design and renewable energy space. Catherine is a qualified Management Accountant and works with Princes Trust delivering their Enterprise programme.