Our Board

Aideen McGinley OBE

Aideen McGinley is National Trustee for Northern Ireland on the BBC Trust. She has 37 years local and central government experience in Northern Ireland being the first woman CEO in local government and subsequently the first woman Permanent Secretary in the newly devolved Central government in 1999. She established the first Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure and then moved to the Department of Employment and Learning where she was responsible for further and higher education, employment and skills.  Reflecting her interest in regeneration she took up a secondment in 2009 as CEO of ILEX, the Urban Regeneration Company for Derry~Londonderry, where she was instrumental in developing the £400mil 10-year regeneration plan, building the £14mil symbolic Peace Bridge and successfully securing the inaugural and transformational UK City of Culture 2013 title for the city.

Albert Tucker

Albert has a track record of building strong values and ethics-based organisations while matching the innovation, quality, skills and efficiency of the best in any sector that he is active in. He has a long-term interest in developing safer, stronger and sustainable communities and has served as a Board member of Places for People – the UK’s largest housing and regeneration group – since June 2005. Albert has held a range of non-executive posts including at Comic Relief where he has been the chair of the International Committee for over 10 years.

David Walker

David is a qualified accountant. He is also a trustee of the Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trusts and an active member of Dunfermline Round Table.

Diana Brittan

Diana has held a number of public appointments including chairing the Community Fund. She now chairs two charities, Independent Age and the Connection at St Martins (a homeless charity), and also Chairs a regional committee of the British Lung Foundation.

Fiona Robertson

Fiona has been a Trustee of the Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trusts since 2005 with a particular interest in the work of the Hero Fund. She is a Physiotherapist who has worked clinically in the NHS in Scotland and England and also in Australia, specialising in Neurological Rehabilitation. MSc Rehabilitation studies funded by Department of Health (1993). Previously Research Physiotherapist employed by the University of Oxford. Fiona was formerly Physiotherapy lecturer at Queen Margaret University Edinburgh. Fiona has been Deputy Lieutenant of Fife since 2007 and Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Fife since 2015.

Ian Wilson

Managing Director Turner Access and Turner Fabrication. Trustee of the Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trusts. Past Chairman NASC Scotland & Northern Ireland; Past Chairman Dunfermline Round Table.

Jane Livingstone

Jane Livingstone is a playwright and screenwriter and has been a trustee of the Carnegie UK Trust for 5 years. She also publishes online culture magazine Avocado Sweet and provides copywriting and content strategy services to a wide range of freelance clients. Jane lives in Dunfermline where she is in involved in various civic and cultural projects including being a trustee of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and a founding partner of Outwith Festival.

Janet McCauslin

Janet has dedicated her life to education within Fife. Her current role is Strategic Lead for STEM Development (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) at Fife College. After beginning her career as a primary school teacher, Janet has worked at Carnegie College (now Fife College) since 2007, developing an expertise in community development and urban regeneration, and working with students with additional support and behavioural needs, before moving on to policy and strategy work. Hobbies include walking, gardening and reading when time permits! She is a Church Elder, and holds a number of voluntary roles in her church as well as her role as a Trustee of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and the Carnegie UK Trust.

Megan Mathias

Megan is a Senior Research Fellow in the newly-established Wales Centre for Public Policy, Cardiff University. She is also completing a PhD on leadership and sensemaking in government.
Megan’s earlier professional career was established with two sector-leading companies, PA Consulting Group and Serco. Between 1997 and 2005, she delivered successful client assignments for governments in the UK and USA, before becoming a director of Serco’s in-house think tank, The Serco Institute.
In 2006, Megan was approached to join the UK civil service as an interim Senior Civil Servant, working on public service reform and innovations in governance for the devolved Welsh Government. In 2010 she then co-founded and ran an independent research organisation, Kafka Brigade UK and Ireland – supporting the public sector to radically redesign and innovate services around the citizen.
Between 2013 and 2017, Megan lived and worked in the Middle East. She continued as an Associate for the Kafka Brigade UK, before taking a role in 2014 as a Senior Advisor for the New Zealand Government in the UAE, and then in 2015, joining the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government in Dubai as a Research Fellow, specialising in strategic management and leadership.
Until her move to the Gulf, Megan also held advisory roles with Wales Public Services 2025 (a think-tank initiative she co-founded), SPICE (a time-banking social enterprise), the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Wales, and the Institute for Welsh Affairs – chairing its Cardiff and Valleys Branch (think-tank).
Megan is a Non-Resident Research Fellow for the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government in Dubai; an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Public Leadership; and a Friend of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

Mike Reid

Mike’s career spans twenty-eight years and has focused on the opportunities created by the convergence of technology, marketing and the transformative capabilities of digital.  In January 2016 Mike retired as a Managing Director at Sapient where he led the UK business from a start-up in 1998 to be recognised as the top digital agency by 2013.  He was also a member of the Global Leadership team that was responsible for setting and executing the company’s strategy. In 2015 Sapient was acquired by Publicis Groupe.   

Prior to Sapient Mike held various positions at Logica, playing a key role in establishing their Edinburgh office, and at ICL.   Mike now has his own advisory business, Nine Patriots Consulting, which helps businesses grow and scale to the next level.  In addition, he is an angel investor and plays a number of non-executive director roles including Chairman of the Scottish headquartered marketing agency Tayburn.

Mike serves as a Trustee of the Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trust, which was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1903, as well as being a Trustee of the Carnegie UK Trust.    He lives in Dunfermline with his wife, Louise, has two children and will often be found on the golf course when not doing something useful.

Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE

Mark Shucksmith is Director of the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal where he aims to connect social renewal research with policy and practice. Mark is also Professor of Planning at Newcastle University. His main areas of research include social exclusion in rural areas, rural housing, rural development, agricultural change and rural policy. Recently authored or co-authored books include: Rural Policies and Rural Transformations in the UK and US (Routledge 2012); Future Directions in Rural Development (Carnegie 2012); and Comparing Rural Development – Continuity and Change in the Countryside of Western Europe (Ashgate2009). He has coordinated several EU research projects, including: The Territorial Impact of the CAP, Young People in Rural Development, and The role of Social Capital in Rural Development. Mark was a Board Member of the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) from 2005-13, was a member of the Government’s Affordable Rural Housing Commission (2005-06), Chair of the Scottish Government’s Committee of Inquiry into Crofting (2007-08), and adviser to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on rural issues. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Rural Sociology, of the Council of the International Rural Sociological Association (Vice President during 2004-08) and was Programme Chair for the XI World Rural Sociology Congress in Trondheim, Norway in 2004.  He was awarded the honour of OBE in 2009 for services to rural development and to crofting. He was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2010. He is now a Trustee of ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England).

Chair

Sir John Elvidge

Sir John Elvidge was Permanent Secretary of the Scottish Government from 2003 to 2010. He had previously worked in the Cabinet Office and the Scottish Office and works in an advisory role with several governments in Europe, China and North America. He is an Adjunct Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and works with the University of Oxford on programmes for leadership and public policy for overseas governments. He retired in June 2010 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an Associate of the Institute for Government. His report Northern Exposure: Lessons from the first twelve years of devolved government in Scotland was published by the Institute for Government as part of its Inside Out series. Sir John was appointed as a Carnegie Fellow on the Enabling State project in the summer of 2012 and has led our work in this area. He became a Trustee of the Carnegie UK Trust in May 2014.

William Perrin

William is a strategic practitioner and advisor at the interface of technology, the state and the voluntary sector. He is a trustee of several charities, the founder of tech start-ups and a community activist.

In a wide ranging public service career, which included being an advisor to Tony Blair, William was instrumental in creating OFCOM, reforming the regulatory regime of several sectors and kicking off the UK government’s interest in open data. William founded community journalism start-up Talk About Local in 2012.

William is a trustee of Good Things Foundation, Indigo Trust, The Philanthropy Workshop and 360Giving, a charity about charity data, which he co-founded. William also set up a successful broadband campaign and company to bring connectivity to rural parts of South Oxfordshire.

William is non-partisan and has advised the two major political parties in the UK. He has been active in London’s challenging Kings Cross community for many years, long before the partial gentrification though he now has a more rural focus living part time on a remote farm in the Chiltern Hills.

President

William Thomson CBE

William Thomson, great grandson of Scots American philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, previous Chair of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust and now our Honorary President. Formerly in shipping, now a director of retail and publishing companies.

Willie Campbell

Willie qualified in 1977 as a secondary teacher of Music, being appointed in 2000 as Head Teacher. Although a secondary teacher he worked briefly as a visiting teacher of music in Primary Schools in Islay and Jura while Assistant Head Teacher of Islay High School.

Willie joined Falkirk Education Headquarters in 2003, initially to oversee the implementation of the McCrone Report, and remained in the Resources section there until he accepted an offer of early retirement in 2010.  In this post he worked across all sectors of education dealing with staffing and financial planning issues.

Willie is currently a Councillor with Fife Council but is not standing for re-election in May.  During his time with the Council he has had particular responsibility for a major programme of Early Years development with a strong focus on Family Nurture and particular engagement in areas of greatest poverty in Fife.  He also Chairs the Corporate Parent Board which has responsibility for the council’s approach to the care of Looked After Children.  In addition Willie is Chairperson of the Superannuation Fund and Pensions Sub-Committee and Co-Chair of the Planning Review Body.