Event

Derek Hanlan

Associate Tax Director, Martin Aitken & Co Ltd.

With nearly 25 years of experience gained from working in prominent Big 4 accountancy firms and as the previous Director of Taxation at Craig Corporate, Derek is highly qualified, being CIOT certified.

He specialises in providing tax compliance and transactional-related tax advice to SMEs and owner-managed businesses across diverse industries and market sectors.

Derek is frequently sought after for his expertise in advising on succession matters in family-run businesses and supporting business start-ups, including EIS and SEIS companies. Notably, he is a member of the Scottish Technical Sub-Committee of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

Emma Congreve

Emma Congreve is Principal Knowledge Exchange Fellow and Deputy Director at the Fraser of Allander Institute. Emma’s work at the Institute is focussed on policy analysis, covering a wide range of areas of social and economic policy.

Emma is an experienced economist and has previously held roles as a senior economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and as an economic adviser within the Scottish Government.

Her particular area of expertise is economic policy relating to low income households. She also has a background in a range of policy areas, including local government finance and environment and agricultural economic policy.

Sara Thiam

CEO, Prosper

As the CEO of Prosper, Sara helps ensure members’ thinking shapes government and industry action for the better. She co-chairs the Green Heat Finance Task Force with the Scottish Government’s Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings and the New Deal for Business Wellbeing Group. Sara is a former Director for the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in Scotland and member of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland. Her non-exec roles include Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (now BE-ST).

Sara’s career in economic development includes the Glasgow Edinburgh Collaboration Initiative and EU projects designed to stimulate Scottish innovation.  Her early career involved the setting up of the Eurodesk youth information service subsequently replicated throughout the EU. Sara holds a BA (Hons) in modern languages from the University of Stirling.

A career banker with 38 years experience in Retail, Business and Corporate Banking across Scotland and the UK. A founder member of the bank’s acquisition finance team in Scotland, over the last 20 years has assisted many families and businesses to fund their acquisition, growth and exit strategies. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and an MSc in Organisational Development from The University of Glasgow. Maintains a keen interest in business strategy and during his career has lead a number of key strategic projects for the organisation, including most recently the bank’s LIBOR Transition Programme , representing Virgin Money on a number of key industry working groups and task forces, and lead the internal team which assisted customers to transition loans to alternative reference rates. Currently leads our team of Corporate and Commercial Managers focused on providing a face to face relationship banking service, alongside a suite of digital banking products.