Our advisory board

Clare is a community worker, activist and campaigner for human rights. A passionate community development practitioner, she has over 20 years experience of working with communities campaigning for equality and social justice. Clare is a founding member and Director of Making Rights Real. A Board member and European Director with the International Association for Community Development, in 2019 she was awarded the Global Ambassador Award for Community Development. Clare is a Trustee with the Children’s Parliament and an Atlantic Fellow for Economic and Social Equity with London School of Economics. A football fanatic, she can often be found cheering on her beloved team Dundee United. 

Gill has extensive experience in online education, having worked until recently as Access, Participation and Success Manager at The Open University in Scotland. She has an MA in Online and Distance Education and has a particular interest in a pedagogy of care for learners and educators. She has co-created a range of open educational resources with learners and partner organisations using the Open University’s OpenLearn Create platform. She has also worked in partnership with third sector organisations to support access to higher education for forced migrants and co-hosts the Refugee Learning Stories project. She is a member of FemEdTech and a Wikipedia trainer and editor.

Jim leads the CPD & Training team at the Law Society of Scotland. The team run over one hundred unique training sessions each year, serving several thousand members annually. In addition to numerous legal conferences and seminars, CPD run several ‘certificated courses’, Trainee CPD and essential career skills.

Jim joined as Head of CPD in 2016 after a career working in political publishing and before that as a researcher and part-time lecturer at Keele University Law School. His legal research focused on corporate criminality, and specifically the law of involuntary manslaughter.

John harnesses tech for good to improve people’s lives. He supports charities of all sizes on their journey of digital change to assess and improve their digital capability and enhance their effectiveness. This includes finding tools, sharing best practice and changing culture. John is the Digital Evolution Manager at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO). In this role, John leads an ecosystem of digital support for Scottish charities. His work is varied and can entail benchmarking, one-to-one support, specialist training, signposting, strategy shaping, and supplier discovery.

Dr. Judith Turbyne became Chief Executive of Children in Scotland in August 2021. She has spent most of her professional life working in and with the charity sector. For much of that time she worked in international development, with charities challenging global poverty and inequality. She worked in Latin America and the Caribbean for many years, in local frontline organisations and with multinational funders, before moving to Dublin to work as the CEO of Progressio Ireland. Judith returned home to Scotland in 2013 as Head of Engagement with the Scottish Charity Regulator where she has had the pleasure of working with many charities across Scotland. She is currently the Deputy Chair of the Corra Foundation. Judith has a PhD from the University of Bath which looked at empowerment in development. Aside from her wonderful friends and family, the things that make her most happy are mountains, music, running, cricket and a good book.