Board of Management

Liz Connolly

Liz was appointed as Principal of West College Scotland on 3 September 2018, she was formerly Vice-Principal Corporate Development. 

She was born and brought up in the East End of Glasgow and has an honours degree and an MBA from Strathclyde University. She attended Harvard University to study Executive Development.

Liz worked for the Scottish Development Agency before its merger with the Training Agency in 1991 to become Scottish Enterprise. She then spent the next 16 years with Scottish Enterprise, becoming Chief Executive of three separate Local Enterprise Companies, as well as Operations Director for the West of Scotland.

Liz left the organization in 2010 to spend time working on charity projects, including the building of a community centre in a village in South Africa. She has since assisted in similar projects in Nepal and Cambodia.

Before joining West College Scotland, she project-managed the merger of Anniesland, Cardonald and Langside Colleges to create Glasgow Clyde College.

She is a board member of Targeting Innovation and has recently joined the board of Interface, which connects organisations from national and international industries to Scotland’s 23 higher education and research institutes.

Jim Hannigan

A former student of Reid Kerr College, Jim was formerly Director of Asset Management and Product Development for Doosan Babcock, based in Renfrew. Joining Babcock straight from school, and having served his time as an apprentice Jim then graduated with an honours degree in Metallurgy from University of Strathclyde in 1990.

After a number of years operating in the engineering and technical arena, Jim’s career moved more toward business development and management and in 2008 he graduated with an MBA from University of Strathclyde Business School. He is a professional member of IOM3 and has been a Chartered Engineer since 1994.

Jim is currently the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) Skills Programme Manager with Skills Development Scotland (SDS), where he is responsible for leading the development of the skills proposition for the Manufacturing Skills Academy.

He has a particular interest in both organisational culture and people development, striving to give young people the opportunity and support required to grow toward achieving their career aspirations.

Linda Johnston

Linda is the Business Strategy Manager at North Lanarkshire Council and has extensive experience of change and transformation programmes, redesigning public sector services to meet the varying needs of users .  With a passion for supporting others to reach their full potential Linda has led the development of School/Employer partnerships to offer young people the opportunity to develop life skills, created job opportunities and mentoring support for young people with complex needs and supports young entrepreneurs to grow and develop sustainable business models.

Linda has chaired national policy groups, including the development of the public sector complaint’s handling procedures on behalf of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and has successfully delivered a number of high profile events.  These include the triathlon and time trial events for G2014 Commonwealth Games, the British Transplant Games where she welcomed over 1200 transplant athletes and their families to North Lanarkshire and designed a marketing campaign to increase the number of sign-ups to the Organ Donor Register in Scotland. More recently, Linda was Chair of the Local Organising Committee to deliver the Go Live festival event at Strathclyde Country Park as part of the Glasgow 2018 European Sporting Championships with over 20,000 local people attending the activities.  

Douglas Bayley

Dougie joined West of College Scotland in January 2019 as support staff for the Construction team. He has spent the majority of his career in the rail industry and undertaking a variety of roles within the industry both in the UK and overseas.  During this time Dougie was responsible for delivering fencing and vegetation contracts on the rail infrastructure. 

After settling down in West Dunbartonshire and developing a love for the Dumbarton FC he took up a change of career which he was successfully recruited into in the College and has not look back since.

Outside of work Dougie’s interests centre around his family and takes great joy in his 2 grandchildren and encouraging them to spend time creatively and in the great outdoors.  Dougie’s family underline his commitment to ensuring that there are the right support structures and opportunities for all young people to enable them to achieve their career goals.

Gordon Hunt

Graeme Bold

Paul Sefton