Former MSP Susan Deacon has been appointed as the first female chair of the Institute of Directors in Scotland.
The 51-year old Ms Deacon, Scotland’s first cabinet minister for health and community care in 1999, began her career working in local government.
She had a spell with management consultancy Eglinton and then worked at the business school at Heriot-Watt University before winning election as a Labour MSP.
Since leaving Holyrood in 2007 she has taken on a wide portfolio of roles including non-executive positions at ScottishPower and Lothian Buses.
Speaking about her new role at the IoD she said: “Successful organisations need effective leaders – it’s that simple.
“If Scotland is to continue to grow and flourish on a world stage we need to support the leaders of today and to grow the leaders of tomorrow.
“So too must our boardrooms have within them a diverse range of skills and experience and operate to the highest possible standards.”
Ian McKay, the outgoing chair who formally stands down at the organisation’s annual conference on Friday, said: “The future of the IoD is in excellent hands with Susan at the helm.
“Her varied experience and approach to leadership will be of real benefit to the IoD at a time when boards are increasingly embracing change.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here