Colin McConnell was appointed chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) in May 2012.
The father-of-five from Edinburgh began his career as a prison officer before moving through the management ranks.
He was formerly director general of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and began his career in the Scottish Prison Service before joining the assistant governor training programme.
He was assistant governor at Glenochil Prison from September 1986 to 1989 and then spent three years as management development officer at the Scottish Prison Service College before moving to the prison service in England and Wales in 1992.
He oversees 4000 staff at 16 prisons across Scotland and is responsible for the custody of around 8000 prisoners.
SPS has an annual budget of more than £486 million.
He has a salary of about £110,000 a year.
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