Lena Wilson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Lena Cooper Wilson c.1965 Yorkhill, Glasgow |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Glasgow Caledonian University and University of Strathclyde |
| Occupation | Executive |
| Known for | CEO of Scottish Enterprise |
| Successor | Steve Dunlop |
Lena Cooper Wilson CBE (born c. 1965) is a United Kingdom Scottish executive and bank employee. She rose to be the CEO of Scottish Enterprise. She went on to directorships with a number of organisations.
Wilson was born in Yorkhill which is part of Glasgow near Partick [1] in about 1965. [2] At the age of two her parents moved to East Kilbride so that her father could work for Rolls-Royce plc. He stepped down in role to become a labourer to give the family a more rural outlook. Wilson was keen at school but she wasn't attracted to science and engineering. When she went to university she studied Business Administration at Glasgow Caledonian University with a vague ambition of becoming a diplomat or working for the United Nations. She realised that she needed to find the money to travel to London for work and her first job was advertised as a "Girl Friday" when such adverts were legal in Britain. [1]
Wilson became the Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise in 2009. She had previously lead Scotland’s international trade and investment arm "Scottish Development International". [3]
Wilson was involved when Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond signed the Masdar agreement with Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber on behalf of UAE's Masdar Institute of Science and Technology at the World Future Energy Summit in 2012. Hundreds will co-operate on the development of wind power. [4]
Wilson was awarded a CBE in 2015 for her contribution to "economic development" in Scotland. [5] Wilson lead the government's Scottish O&G job taskforce whose task was completed in 2017 [6] and the same year she left Scottish Enterprise in October. She had received criticism from the Scottish Parliament over taking a paid, non-executive directorship with the multinational product testing and certification company Interek. [7] Wilson had been paid £214,000 a year by Scottish Enterprise and she was replaced by Steve Dunlop. Dunlop was offered £168,000 a year and he was said to be one of the top paid civil servants in Scotland. [8]
Wilson also joined the board of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2017. [7]
In 2019, she became the chair of the accountancy firm "Chiene and Tait" which is based in Edinburgh [9] In the same year, she was elected to be a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [10]
Wendy Alexander is a retired Scottish politician and the former Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Paisley North. She held various Scottish Government cabinet posts and was the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2007 to 2008. In 2010–2011 she convened the Scotland Bill Committee on financial powers of the Scottish Parliament.
Robert Haldane Smith, Baron Smith of Kelvin, is a British businessman and former Governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Smith was knighted in 1999, appointed to the House of Lords as an independent crossbench peer in 2008, and appointed Knight of the Thistle in the 2014 New Year Honours. He was also appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in 2016.
Sarah Herriot Boyack is a Scottish Labour politician who has served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothian region since 2019, and previously from 2011 to 2016. She formerly represented the Edinburgh Central constituency from 1999 to 2011.
Margaret Patricia Curran is a Scottish Labour Party politician. She served in the British House of Commons as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow East from 2010 to 2015 and was Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland from 2011 until 2015. She was previously the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Baillieston from 1999 to 2011, and held a number of posts within the Scottish Executive, including Minister for Parliamentary Business, Minister for Social Justice and Minister for Communities.
Susan Catherine Deacon is a Scottish business executive, advisor and former politician who served as Chair of the Scottish Police Authority from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Scottish Labour Party, she served as the first Minister for Health and Community Care in the Scottish Executive under first ministers Donald Dewar and Henry McLeish from 1999 to 2001.
Scottish Enterprise is a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government which encourages economic development, enterprise, innovation, international and investment in business. The body covers the eastern and central parts of Scotland whilst similar bodies, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise, operate in north-western and southern Scotland, respectively.
Masdar (Arabic:مصدر), also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, is an Emirati state-owned renewable energy company. It was founded and chaired by Sultan Al Jaber in 2006 as a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company. The company is responsible for development of Masdar City, which headquarters the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti is an Italian-Scottish classical solo violinist and festival director. Her ability was recognised when she was a child, including the award of BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16. She works with orchestras in Europe and America as well as with Alexei Grynyuk, her regular pianist. Since 2012, she has played the Gariel Stradivarius violin. In 2019, she founded the music education charity The Benedetti Foundation and became the first woman to lead the Edinburgh International Festival when she was made Festival Director on 1 October 2022.
The production of renewable energy in Scotland is a topic that came to the fore in technical, economic, and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century. The natural resource base for renewable energy is high by European, and even global standards, with the most important potential sources being wind, wave, and tide. Renewables generate almost all of Scotland's electricity, mostly from the country's wind power.
Dame Ruth Muldoon Silver is a British academic administrator and promoter of education policy. She was Principal of Lewisham College for 17 years until 2009, and was chair of the Working Men's College governing board from 2002-05. In 2010, she became the chair of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), a public body for Further Education and skills development. Most recently she was president of the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL).
Dame Julia Charity Cleverdon is a British charity worker who served for 16 years as Chief Executive of Business in the Community, one of the Prince's Charities of Charles, Prince of Wales.
Celtic Renewables Ltd. is the first company to produce biofuel from the by-products of the scotch whisky industry.
Sir John Calman Shaw was a Scottish businessman, chairman of the board of directors and Governor of the Bank of Scotland from 1999–2001, deputy governor from 1991–1999 and a non-executive director from 1990–2001.
Andrew James Dunlop, Baron Dunlop is a British politician and life peer. From May 2015 to June 2017, he was the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland. He sits in the House of Lords on the Conservative benches.
Robert William Black was a Scottish public administrator who was the first Auditor General for Scotland, holding the post between 2000 and 2012. He had several Local Authority management roles before being appointed as Auditor General. As Auditor General he coordinated the scrutiny of public finances over several administrations. After retiring from the role of Auditor General he held multiple board positions and chaired several independent commissions that carried out independent reviews on issues such as housing policy and policing.
Caroline Jane Gardner was the Auditor General for Scotland between June 2012 and July 2020. She is a former president of Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) 2006−7.
Lorne Donald Crerar is a Scottish lawyer who is co-founder & chairman of Harper Macleod and chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise. He was Professor of Banking Law at the University of Glasgow's School of Law 1997–2015. He was convener of the Standards Commission for Scotland 2003–2005 and chaired an independent review into the handling of complaints about public services.
Sheila Rowan is a Scottish physicist and academic, who is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and director of its Institute for Gravitational Research since 2009. She is known for her work in advancing the detection of gravitation waves. In 2016, Rowan was appointed the (part-time) Chief Scientific Advisor to the Scottish Government.
Claire Ighodaro CBE is a Nigerian chartered management accountant. She was the first female president of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and previously the financial director of BT Broadband. Ighodaro is presently a non-executive director of Flood Re, XL Catlin Insurance Company UK Limited, and the Pennon Group PLC. She is a trustee of the British Council and an independent board member of the UK Trade & Investment Executive Board. She is a board member and Audit Committee Chair of Lloyd’s of London and a non-executive director and Governance Committee Chair of Merrill Lynch. In 2008, she was awarded with a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to business.
Judy Wagner, FRSE is a British business leader, educator and executive search recruitment manager. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021 and is the co-founder and non-executive director of FWB Park Brown, an executive search company.