Board of Management

More about us

The Board of Management is responsible for overseeing the College’s activities, determining its future direction and fostering an environment in which the College’s vision is achieved. Members are appointed following a fair, open and merit-based recruitment process, and the Board also includes the College Principal, elected members of staff and representatives of the Student Association.

Board of Management

Dr Waiyin Hatton
Chair of the Board of Management

Dr Waiyin Hatton

Dr Waiyin Hatton is a firm believer in life-long learning and a beneficiary of formal education and continued professional development throughout her career.

Passionate about unleashing talents, Waiyin set up her own consultancy, Wai Beyond, in 2012 to inspire and nurture greatness in people, teams and organisations, delivering leadership development; coaching and Board development; acting as ‘Business Mentor’; and being a role model to women in leadership.

Prior to this, she has had extensive leadership across the public and not-for-profit sectors in health care in England, Scotland and Wales. Her last post was that of Chief Executive of NHS Ayrshire and Arran, describing her role as ‘creating an environment to succeed’.

A former karate international medallist, she co-founded Ayrshire Sportsability; and puts back in the community as she currently Chair of Action Against Stalking and Director of the Scottish Chamber of Commerce.

Waiyin was awarded Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow in 2015 for her contribution to the community; and has been recognised by the Association of Scottish Business Women, winning the Best Business Charity Award in 2015 and awarded Woman of Inspiration in 2014.
Liz Connolly
Principal & Chief Executive

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.
Jacqueline Henry
Vice Chair of the Board of Management

Jacqueline Henry

Jacqueline Henry has a wide ranging experience in the education and wider public sector fields. Previously the Convener of Education for Renfrewshire Council, she has held a number of senior posts in education including Lecturer in Childhood and Primary studies at the University of Strathclyde, where she was Course Director of the BA Childhood Practice and the Early Childhood Education Postgraduate programmes.

In this latter post she worked closely with Colleges as part of joint course teams. Over the course of her career, Jacqueline has worked in West Dunbartonshire, Inverclyde and Renfrewshire - where she lives - and knows the areas well.

Outside of work and politics Jacqueline's interests centre on family, friends, reading and travel.
Nick Allan
Board of Management

Nick Allan

Nick brings over 35 years of business experience to his position with West College Scotland, having spent his career working within the property sector.

A chartered surveyor, he is the managing director of Nick Allan and Associates Ltd, providing strategic property advice across the private, public and voluntary sector.

In addition he is a Non-Executive director on various boards spanning the built environment, social housing, community empowerment and economic regeneration sectors.

His knowledge and experience, coupled with his passion and enthusiasm for education, are the cornerstones of his aim to continue to successfully develop links between industry, professional bodies and the college.
Jim Hannigan
Board of Management

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.
Mark Newlands
Board of Management

Mark Newlands

Mark is Head of Partnerships for Scottish Enterprise with responsibility for the West of Scotland incorporating the Glasgow City Region and Ayrshire. Prior to this role Mark was the Head of Trade & Investment for Technology and Engineering in SDI. He joined SDI in 2007 to set up their International Education team working with Universities and Colleges and has developed extensive national and international networks with experience of doing business globally.

He has over 25 years’ experience in working with the Education sector in Scotland holding various teaching and support roles in Kilmarnock and Cardonald Colleges before joining Scottish Enterprise as Brand Manager for the Modern Apprenticeship Programme and working on a range of skills programmes for young people.

He has retained a passion for Education since his early days as a school teacher in Ayrshire and brings this passion and ambition for the college sector to his work on the board.
Linda Johnston
Board of Management

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.
John Leburn
Board of Management

John Leburn

A qualified Chartered Accountant, John has enjoyed a long and varied career with many blue-chip organisations. Well known for his “left-field” thinking, John has a strong track record of implementing best practice throughout all major areas of a business or organisation.

His experience spans many sectors such as Audit; FMCG; Infrastructure; Defence; Aerospace, Wines and Spirits and SME’s. He has managed Finance, IT, Business Analysis; Customer Service, Strategic Planning, Consumer Intelligence, Commercial Development, Supply Chain and Investor Relations functions – contributing new ways of thinking to many of them.

John is a Principal Consultant for Exponentiate.uk, providing a wide range of business support services (Strategy, Leadership, Change Management and Business Modelling) to a varied client base.
Angela Wilson
Board of Management

Angela Wilson

Angela joined West Dunbartonshire Council as Director in March 2012. She has strategic oversight of wide ranging services which help to support the day to day running of the Council, providing a positive workplace and delivering better outcomes for the citizens of West Dunbartonshire. These services help to improve the lives of all who work, live and visit the area.

Angela’s career to date has been in the public sector, having previously held posts in Central Government in her early days prior to moving to Local Government in 1996 where she joined South Lanarkshire Council’s Personnel Services team and worked there for 11 years. A promotion opportunity saw Angela join South Ayrshire Council in late 2007 and she enjoyed over 4 years as the Head of HR and Customer Services.

As a member of CIPD, Angela has enjoyed professional roles in Local Government including HR Adviser to CoSLA and President of Society of Personnel Directors Scotland enabling cross council working, and collaborative engagement with Trade Unions and colleagues at a national level. She continues to be involved in Scotland wide partnerships across the public sector and is a member of Solace Scotland.
David Watson
Teaching Staff Member on the Board

David Watson

David joined West College Scotland in 2015 before which he held various FE teaching and management positions since 1997. With over 20 years’ experience as a Teaching and Learning professional, he now brings that experience to the Board.

Before becoming a Full Time lecturer he worked as a Design Engineer in the private sector or multinationals that included Cookson, Schlumberger and Marconi. He is a graduate of the Universities of Strathclyde and Stirling.

David’s hobbies include playing golf in Ayrshire and piano.
Vanessa Thompson
Students' Association President

Vanessa Thompson
Steven Cairney
Support Staff Member on the Board

Steven Cairney

Steven has worked in the College since it’s inception in 2013 and is currently Quality Standards Coordinator. Before this, he held various positions since 2008 at the legacy Clydebank College. With over 11 years’ experience within the FE sector, he now brings that experience to the Board.

Before coming to work at the College, Steven worked in the retail industry for four years in several front-facing customer service roles. He is a Business Management graduate of Glasgow Caledonian University.

Steven regularly enjoys an outing to the theatre and loves to spend his down-time with family and friends.
Sabira Akram
Board of Management

Sabira Akram

Sabira has accumulated a wealth of senior management skills over a period of 20+ years and is a highly motivated Project Manager and Senior Consultant with particular expertise in delivering business processes and systems that satisfy both functional goals and meet performance and quality targets.

She studied towards her executive MBA at Heriot Watt University and has an honours degree in Physics and Chemistry as well as an MSc in Software Technology.

She also considers it an enormous privilege to serve as a Panel Member for Children’s Hearing Scotland which exists to help protect the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable children and young people in Scotland.
Fiona McKerrell
Board of Management

Fiona McKerrell

As a lawyer specialising in business advisory and restructuring, Fiona has almost 20 years' experience in advising business and stakeholders across many different industries.
She has a passion for gaining an understanding of an organisation's key challenges and opportunities, and for using both her expertise and common sense to help find optimal strategies and solutions.
She believes that a successful education system is integral to a thriving society and successful economy.
Fiona is a partner in Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP. Her hobbies include running, camping and cycling.
Gordon Hunt
Board of Management

Gordon Hunt

Gordon trained as an academic librarian and managed libraries in Leeds, Cambridge and Oxford before moving to Scotland as the first head of information services at the Royal Conservatoire in 1999. After a period as a director of the National Library of Scotland he became University Librarian of UWS in 2008.

In ten years at UWS he was successively Campus Director (Ayr), Director of Planning and Head of External Engagement, working with colleges, local authorities and business.

In recent years Gordon has worked in the grant-making sector supporting education projects at The Robertson Trust and the Peter Vardy Foundation, before moving to the College Development Network (CDN) in November 2020 in the role of maternity cover for the Head of Leadership, Governance and Research.

Gordon also has extensive experience in non-executive roles including as chair of the Scottish Library and Information Council, chair of audit and governance at Stow College and founding trustee and vice chair of the Ayrshire College Foundation. He has also served on the boards of Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Paisley First.
Grant Lyall
Board of Management

Grant Lyall

Grant is a Chartered Accountant and has spent his career working in financial services. Over the last 17 years, he gained extensive experience working at Executive Management and Board level providing leadership on risk management, compliance and audit.

Since 2019, Grant has volunteered as a mentor with MCR Pathways, a Scottish charity whose vision is that every care experienced young person gets the same education outcomes, career opportunities and life chances as every other person. This gave Grant insight into the important role of Scotland’s Colleges in improving employability and delivering good outcomes for young people.

Grant has recently taken early retirement and his interests include cycling, running and golf.
Graeme Bold
Board of Mangement

Graeme Bold

Graeme has over 20 years’ experience in financial services and was appointed Workplace Pensions Director at Scottish Widows in September 2019, where he is responsible for developing the channel strategy, transformation plans and propositions to market including digital services, insight and data led engagement and Master Trust pensions.

Prior to this, he was Operations Director at M&G Prudential leading strategy, development and the global services business in Mumbai. He was at Standard Life for 20 years and held a range of roles including Strategy Director, Operations Director and Proposition Director covering retail platforms and workplace pensions through RDR, Auto-enrolment and Pension Freedoms. Graeme is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and holds positions as board trustee and chair of corporate committee at Sight Scotland, and board member of Origo Services and Criterion.