Isle Of Islay, Scotland, United Kingdom
With a career spanning over 25 years, I currently lead organisational transformation as the Business Transformation & Improvement Manager at Argyll Community Housing Association Group. My focus is on embedding a culture of continuous improvement, driving strategic initiatives, and fostering a customer-centric approach that enhances operations and long-term organisational performance. Leveraging my expertise in senior stakeholder management, commercial negotiation, and feasibility studies, I work to align processes, people, and strategic goals. My professional mission is to enable sustainable business practices while collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to deliver impactful results. I am committed to driving positive cultural and operational change, ensuring the success of ACHA’s Believe and Achieve values. My role reflects a steadfast dedication to fostering innovation and improving service delivery while maintaining a strong focus on both operational excellence and stakeholder collaboration.
As Business Transformation & Improvement Manager, I lead and inspire a dedicated team to deliver organisational transformation across the ACHA Group. My role is centred on embedding a culture of continuous improvement, driving strategic initiatives that enhance operations, service delivery, and long-term organisational performance. I am responsible for planning, executing, and overseeing programmes that improve business processes, culture, and performance. With a focus on both internal and external customers, I champion ACHA’s Believe and Achieve values, fostering a positive, customer-centric culture and building strong, collaborative relationships. Key contributions include: Leading a structured programme of process mapping and review, prioritised by customer and business impact. Driving operational excellence by simplifying and streamlining processes, improving efficiency, and identifying opportunities for cost reduction. Partnering with the Leadership Team and IT to target digitalisation, automation, and self-service at transactional activities. Designing and implementing new processes, systems, and approaches to deliver excellent services while optimising resource management. This role is about more than managing change, it’s about inspiring it, ensuring transformation is sustainable, measurable, and embedded across the organisation.
• Managed Protium's green Hydrogen ambitions on the Isle of Islay, overseeing business development and strategic initiatives. • Collaborated with local stakeholders to drive sustainable solutions and promote environmental awareness, whilst mataining the ambition to realise true community wealth projects. • Deliver Business Case Assessment reports that introduced innovatie pathways for renewable technologies to optimise production processes and reduce carbon footprint. • Engage with renewable energy developers to evaluate routes to market of significate projects around the Islay coastline.
As an Independent Business Consultant, I have consistently delivered strategic, responsible, and sustainable change across diverse organisations, most recently within the brewing and distilling sectors, supporting their development and decarbonisation goals. My ultimate focus has been on guiding businesses through complex transformation, aligning people, technology, and process to unlock operational efficiency and environmental impact. I specialise in stakeholder engagement with organisations capable of investment risk, facilitating partnerships with like-minded, sustainability-focused entities. I’ve successfully led commercial and strategic negotiations, including Heads of Terms (HoT) and Memorandums of Understanding (MoU), for large-scale development projects, from early-stage concept through pre-feasibility, FEED, and into Final Investment Decision (FID). My work ensures full alignment with UK Government funding mechanisms such as Innovate UK, BEIS, and DESNZ, helping clients secure financial backing for progressive low-carbon projects. I bring a hands-on understanding of industrial decarbonisation, particularly through the application of green hydrogen solutions, and I’m passionate about supporting Scotland’s transition to a low-carbon economy.
As Performance Improvement Lead manager, I led transformational initiatives to drive operational excellence, enhance efficiency, and embed sustainable practices across Diageo’s manufacturing operations across all four sites on the Isle of Islay. Leveraged Lean Six Sigma principles, data-driven strategies, and cross-functional collaboration to achieve measurable performance improvements aligned with business objectives. Working in partnership with distillery & malting operations and functional teams to deliver key initiatives that improved business performance across four key sites using data derived from operations. A senior performance partner to execs and site managers, ensuring that any improvements implemented are standardised and sustained within operations teams. Build business case and financial modelling of project CAPEX and OPEX. Managed the full lifecycle and deliver performance transformational project improvements aligned with business strategy, cost reduction, and customer value. Support the challenges of the operations team to continually optimise performance and demonstrate cost efficiency required to drive action and delivery. Strong focus on embedding CI culture and empowering teams through coaching and capability building. Manage engagement and communication with all internal and external stakeholders impacted by projects.
Held an interim senior management position as Operations Manager, with accountability across dry goods procurement, supply chain, bottling production, Health & Safety, Quality and Compliance. Collaborated cross-functionally to embed sustainable practices and operational strategies, ensuring alignment with broader organisational goals. Introduced a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme to enhance team capability and establish future career pathways. Appointed as lead for the COGS/CO2 Task Force, driving product and process optimisation to reduce costs and emissions. Managed external consultancy engagements delivering and presenting operational insights, facilitating site and distillery tours to support stakeholder understanding and project alignment. Coordinated closely with Brand and Marketing teams to ensure operations projects aligned with brand objectives and consumer messaging. Transitioned into a newly created senior role as Strategic Projects Manager, with full accountability for the lifecycle of high-impact CAPEX projects. Engaged at executive level, both locally and across the wider Remy Cointreau group in France, to scope, develop, and drive transformational initiatives aligned with long-term strategic objectives.