Chair:
Sir Sandy Crombie

Sir Sandy Crombie is currently Senior Independent Director of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc. He retired from Standard Life on 31st December 2009 after 43 years service, having been Group Chief Executive since January 2004 and Chief Executive of Standard Life Investments Limited from its launch in 1998. He was a member of the (former) Chancellor of the Exchequer’s High Level Group on Financial Services, served on the board of the association of British Insurers and was the Chairman of the Edinburgh World City of Literature Trust (November 2006-20 June 2011).  He is Vice Chairman of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, President of the Cockburn Association, and became chair of Creative Scotland on its establishment on 1 July 2010. Sir Sandy received a Knighthood for services to the insurance industry in Scotland in the 2009 New Year’s Honours List.

Peter Cabrelli

Peter has over 25 years’ international business experience, most recently as Group Human Resources Director of HBOS plc where he was closely involved in the large and complex merger of Bank of Scotland and the Halifax. Educated at St Andrews University and the London School of Economics, Peter has wide board-level experience, including directorship of several service subsidiaries of the Pearson Group. He has a broad view of business and cultural practices, having previously worked in London, Europe, Africa, and the Middle and Far East, including spells with ITT in Brussels and with Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong. Peter combines keen and regular theatre-going (he is a Director of the National Theatre of Scotland) with an active involvement in sport and recreation as Chairman of the National Playing Fields Association in Scotland. He is also a Non-executive Member of Court at the University of St Andrews and is Chairman of the Trustees of the university’s pension plan and was a member of the Board of Creative Scotland 2009 Limited.

Gwilym Gibbons

Gwilym is the Director of Shetland Arts Development Agency. His organisation is behind 'Mareel' the UK's most northerly arts centre, a £12.2m project currently under construction and which will open in early 2011. His career spans venue, festival and partnership management. Self-educated while growing up in communes throughout the UK and after an experimental two years in school in Argyll, he found his way into the arts through a youth theatre project in Milton Keynes which led to a 7-year period of street theatre work and open-air festival management. Gwilym returned to Argyll in 2001 to take up the post as Development Manager for Argyll & Bute Council at the Corran Halls in Oban, followed by a short period working outside the arts as the Partnership Manager for Kintyre Healthy Living Partnership for the NHS and as the Stronger Safer Communities Manager for West Wiltshire. He took up his post as the first Director of Shetland’s new arts agency in September 2006, an organisation born out of the merger of two long established organisations. In a voluntary capacity Gwilym is a director of the Highland and Islands Promoting Arts Network (PAN). Gwilym is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, holds an MSc in Cultural Management and Policy from Queen Margaret University and has been a Chartered Manager for the past 8 years.

He is a European Regional Development Funding Advisory Group Member for the Highland and Islands Partnership Programme. (Not remunerated)

Steve Grimmond

Steve is Executive Director, Housing and Communities at Fife Council with responsibilities spanning housing, culture, sport, greenspace and community learning and development. He has previously held Director, Chief Officer and Executive posts across Culture and Sport at Aberdeenshire Council and Dundee City Council. He is an Executive Member and previous Chair of VOCAL (Voice of Chief Officers for Cultural, Community and Leisure Services in Scotland); a Governor of Adam Smith College; a Director of the Collective Gallery, Edinburgh; and a Non Executive Director of a number of cultural, sporting and voluntary sector organisations. He is also a practising artist.

Professor Robin MacPherson

Robin is Professor of Screen Media, Director of the Institute for Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University and the founding Director of Screen Academy Scotland – A Skillset Film and Media Academy. The Institute, launched in 2011, aims to help creative practitioners, businesses and organisations prosper and flourish through accessing the knowledge and expertise of its staff, associates and partners.

The Academy, established in 2005, is a collaboration between Edinburgh Napier University and Edinburgh College of Art and is one of only two dual-status Skillset Film and Media Academies in the UK. Robin is also Project Director of ENGAGE, an EU MEDIA programme funded partnership between Edinburgh Napier and the national film schools of Ireland, Estonia and Finland which, since 2008, has provided talented new filmmakers from across Europe a unique opportunity to develop international collaborations.

Robin was a film and television producer from 1989 – 2004, producing a wide range of documentary, current affairs and drama for BBC, Channel 4 and ITV as well as international broadcasters. He received a UK BAFTA nomination in 1996 for his first drama production and a Scottish BAFTA nomination in 2004 for documentary. 

From 1999 to 2002 he was in charge of Script and Project Development for the national screen agency, Scottish Screen. He is a Board member of Creative Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Professor Gayle McPherson

Professor Gayle McPherson holds a Chair in Events and Cultural Policy within the School of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS).  Her research interests revolve around the interventions of the local and national state in events and festivity of all types and the social and cultural impacts of events on communities.  She was cultural advisor to the 2014 bid team and co-wrote Theme 16 of the bid and is conducting research with the volunteers who were part of the Dehli Flag Handover Ceremony on behalf of Glasgow Life. She is currently working on the “Govan wave of Change” project as part of the Cultural Olympiad.  She has published widely in the events, culture and festivals area, including: as a co-author of ‘Event Policy: From Theory to Strategy’ with Routledge and as a co-editor of National Days: Constructing and Celebrating National Identity, Palgrave MacMillan (2009),“Parading Conspicuous Identity: St Patrick’s Day, New York” (2009) “What will the sports tourist look like in 2014 (2008),The role of art and culture in the development of social capital (2007) and Cultural Identity and Festivity: Generating Singapore through Citizenship and Enterprise in Events Activity (2007). She has worked with Glasgow life on a range of evaluation projects, such as the Winter Festival and the World Pipe Band Championship. She is on the Board of Glasgow East Arts Organisation.

Dr Gary West

Gary is a traditional musician, piper and broadcaster, and is currently Head of the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Dr Gary West learned his piping with the much acclaimed Vale of Atholl pipe band with whom he played for 18 years winning both the Scottish and European Championships. His teaching and research interests include issues of local and national identity; the history of Scottish music, revivals and oral history. Gary presents BBC Radio Scotland’s weekly specialist piping programme, Pipeline. He is in regular demand as a recording session player, and has performed on over 20 CDs. More recent releases include his first solo album, The Islay Ball, and Hinterlands, a collaboration with harpist Wendy Stewart.

Barclay Price

Barclay’s career has spanned employment in a bank; setting up and performing in a community-based theatre company; supporting the creation of small craft businesses; developing cultural policy; and engaging business with the arts. He worked in London for over 25 years and returned to Scotland to be Depute Director of the Scottish Arts Council. In 2001 he became the Scottish Office Director of Arts & Business, an organisation that works to encourage business engagement with, and support for, the cultural sector.