Group Members

Louise is the Chief Executive of Young Scot, the national youth information and citizenship agency for Scotland. Young Scot aims to provide an invaluable service to young people aged 11 – 26 by offering information in a range of different formats and channels. With over 380,000 members across Scotland, through Young Scot young people can access what they need to know, when they need to know it, in a way they are most comfortable with. Louise believes that engaging with young people, and providing them with the information, ideas and opportunities they deserve, ensures a brighter, healthier and fairer future for Scotland.

Louise began her professional career as a journalist with local and national media in Scotland and the UK, before embarking on a career in communications with young people in the statutory and voluntary sector. A participant on the groundbreaking WWF Scotland leadership and sustainability project Natural Change, she is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations; a Board member of SCRA (Scottish Children’s Report Administration), as well as the new UK Money Advice Service and ACOSVO (Association of Chief Officers of Scottish Voluntary Organisations).

Tom Ballantine has been on the board of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (a coalition of Scottish organisations campaigning together on climate change) since 2007. He has been chair of their board since June 2010. Before taking on his current role Tom worked as a lawyer and mediator in Edinburgh where he set up and headed a multiple award winning family law team. He left his legal partnership in 2010 to concentrate on campaigning on climate change. Tom’s interest in the environment has been maintained throughout his adult life starting at university and continuing on to membership of the board of Friends of the Earth Scotland from 1988 to 2008 including a period as chair from 1990 to 1992.

Penny’s background is primarily in tourism, and she has worked in a range of tourism-related roles since 1996. She joined the Scottish Government in 2006, working in Sustainable Tourism Policy prior to joining the Climate Change Division in 2009. On a two-year career break in 2008-9, Penny lived in Namibia, working with local communities to develop community tourism enterprises. She has a passionate interest in sustainability and in community development, which are of direct relevance to her role in the Scottish Government’s Low Carbon Behaviour Change team. She still works part-time as a tour guide too!

Qualified in Architecture, Russell has chosen increasingly to apply his training together with experience of design and project management aspects in the Public Domain towards improving the environment in a broader sense and with a focus on the positive impacts for communities.

Russell’s career highlights include Architectural projects with Strathclyde Regional Council and the Scottish Development Agency, The Beach and City Planning Project which was a fast-track regeneration and conservation projects in the prime tourist and Civic areas of Durban, Development Manager in the Scottish office of Sustrans and he worked on the establishment of the Millennium Commission funded National Cycle Network throughout Scotland.

Russell is currently the Director of TCV Scotland, having previously been the Operations Manager of BTCV. In this role he has aligned the organisation, in response to the priorities of the new Scottish Government, to deliver large scale programmes of people, health and community development work through environmental volunteering with the ultimate goal of setting in motion real and tangible social change with the environment and Green Places as the focus.

Russell is also a Board Member and Treasurer at ACOSVO.

Alex is a native Glaswegian who, after Strathclyde University, joined the Met Office in the early 1970s.

He has held a variety of posts working amongst others as a forecaster at RAF Leuchars, Glasgow Weather Centre, Senior Forecaster London Weather Centre, and Senior Forecaster for the ITV National Weather. Alex then became Head of London weather Centre where he lead a team of forecasters responsible for severe weather and road forecasts in the southeast of England, rail forecasts for the UK as well as overall monitoring of UK National TV and radio output. After London Weather Centre he moved on to manage the Met Office defence network in the south of England and the Mediterranean. Alex moved back to Scotland in 2008 and is currently the Met Office Chief Advisor to Government for Scotland & Northern Ireland.

Michelle has worked at SSE for over 8 years and joined the company after gaining over 10 years’ experience of economic development in the public sector, while working for Scottish Enterprise.

Her current responsibilities at SSE involve directing a wide range of operational support services such as Transport, Facilities, Property and Estate Management. In addition to this Michelle is responsible for driving forward the development of Innovation and Research and Development across the SSE plc Group.

Michelle holds a Ph.D., MBA and is a Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply. SSE plc is one of Scotland’s largest FT-SE 100 companies.

Ragne is the Knowledge Officer at ClimateXChange, Scotland’s Centre of Expertise on Climate Change. Ragne started her career in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office where she worked on EU policy and the UK’s relations with Russia. After a brief stint at the Department for International Development working on global environmental change, Ragne completed an MSc on Environmental Sustainability and has worked on climate change issues ever since. Before joining ClimateXChange, Ragne worked in a consultancy delivering a carbon footprinting and low carbon advice service. Her current role involves knowledge brokering between science and policy on issues relating to the transition to a low carbon economy and adaptation to climate change. Ragne is excited by the opportunities for effecting change that good public engagement provides.

Adrian Shaw is the Climate Change Officer for the Church of Scotland and Secretary of Eco-Congregation Scotland. In these roles his challenging task is to help congregations answer the question ‘What does it mean to care for creation in the twenty first century?’ A geographer by training, he previously worked in local government before joining the staff of the Church of Scotland in 2007. When not working in Edinburgh he prefers to be at home by Loch Awe in Argyll.

Jo Bucci is the Managing Director for the People’s Postcode Lottery in the UK. Prior to her position with the Postcode Lottery, Bucci spent three years as the Managing Director of Century Radio between 1999 and 2002. With an incredibly successful career in broadcast media, she has lent her talents to a number of roles, including Commercial Managing Director of Gcap Media plc and as a Commercial Managing Director for Capital Radio. Following this Bucci became Deputy Chief Executive for Leicester City Football Club.

In June 2007 Jo was tasked with expanding the People’s Postcode Lottery into Scotland. The Lottery launched in Scotland in November that year, and Jo has continued to work across the UK business and is UK Managing Director for the Peoples Postcode Lottery.

Hannah Rudman is director of Rudman Consulting a change creation practice specialising in strategic development and change for business resilience and sustainability. She also runs Envirodigital - a series of projects to help SMEs and micro enterprises use digital developments in truly economically, ecologically and socially sustainable ways.