Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

I studied business and law at the University of Edinburgh and took the opportunity to spend my third year in Leuven, Belgium through the Erasmus scheme. It was a brilliant experience and a year that I always look back on fondly.  It gave me a deeper understanding of other cultures, the opportunity to travel widely in Europe and form life-long friendships and, of course, we had lots of fun along the way. I believe there was some study involved too although I can’t remember too much about that aspect! Hopefully a replacement Erasmus scheme will be announced soon so that students can continue to take advantage of such a wonderful opportunity.

After graduation I took a year out, bought an interrail pass and travelled around Europe, stopping off to work  around the Greek islands for a few months. When I returned I joined KPMG on their Tax Graduate programme in London. I realised pretty quickly that a career in tax was really not for me and I managed to convince those with influence that I should be re-routed to the Chartered Accountancy graduate programme. That brought me to Glasgow where I stayed until I qualified as a fully-fledged Chartered Accountant. With my qualification under my belt, I took another year out and, armed with a Rough Guide, I backpacked around South America from Argentina to Colombia.  Back then, tourism was in its infancy in South America and I feel lucky to have experienced that part of the world when it was still relatively untouched.

On return, I moved to Edinburgh and into banking and I took my first investment role at the Royal Bank of Scotland where I was responsible for the origination and execution of debt and equity to fund major infrastructure projects. After a spell there,  I moved to Bank of Scotland and undertook a similar role in the real estate sector before moving to the investment team at Scottish Enterprise, where I helped set up a new fund which invested in low carbon projects across Scotland. That whetted my appetite for  impact investment and so when the opportunity arose to join Strathclyde’s newly created investment team, I jumped at that chance to join in March 2022. It’s been full steam ahead since then with lots of investment activity into new, innovative and ambitious companies as well as supporting our existing investee companies.