COP26: A Catalyst for Change

Karen Betts was appointed as CEO of the SWA in May 2017, after a 16-year career in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO).

Karen held a variety of posts in London and overseas with the FCO. Most recently, she was British Ambassador to Morocco. She was also Counsellor to the British Embassy in Washington, and held roles at the UK’s Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels and the British Embassy in Baghdad. In London, she served in the Cabinet Office and the Joint Intelligence Committee, as well as in a variety of roles in the Foreign Office.

Prior to joining the FCO, Karen worked as a lawyer for Clifford Chance in London and Hong Kong. She studied law at the College of Law in Guildford and history at St. Andrews University.

Karen is an Adviser to the UK Government’s Board of Trade, the Chair of the CBI’s International Trade and Investment Council, a member of the Scottish Government’s Trade Board and a Trustee of Raleigh International.

Anthony Burns is the COO of ACS, an internationally recognised business, which empowers fashion retailers and brands to strategically embed, and easily embrace, circular business models. In his role, he sets the strategic priorities of the business and leads the company in growing all areas, including marketing, technology, product and analytics. In 3 short years, Burns’ vision of creating a new economy for apparel is in full swing.

Under Burns’ leadership, ACS has been transformed into a circular fashion enterprise with clothes rental offerings for woman, men, children and babies. The company has already achieved zero waste to landfill, carbon neutrality, and are working towards net zero emissions.

Anthony has expanded the company’s expertise into garment refurbishment where they transform clothes normally deemed unusable by retailers, into clothes as good as new, which can be resold, and their lifespan significantly increased.

He is an Engineering Graduate with a Masters in Logistics and also an MBA from Strathclyde University. He has established links with most of the leading Universities in Scotland delivering innovation in garment sanitisation, increasing worker activity in the workplace and embracing technologies such as 3d factory simulations. Anthony is a regular lecturer at universities and business schools nationwide. He is currently working with New College Lanarkshire to establish a Sustainable Fashion capability in Lanarkshire.

Under his leadership, ACS has received recognition as nominees and winners of renowned sustainability awards – including Vibes and Drapers.

Burns has focused the business on a social responsibility agenda, by becoming an accredited Living Wage provider, being a disability confident employer and signing the race at work charter. ACS has also been awarded for its employee health and well-being initiatives and is currently working towards B- Corp status.

Anthony Burns’ mission is to improve the sustainability of the fashion industry, and be more socially accountable, while increasing ACS’s turnover by 10-fold within 5-years.

Delivering clean, green electricity to homes and businesses is the key objective of ScottishPower Renewables, under the direction of Lindsay McQuade. Lindsay is responsible for ScottishPower Renewables’ fleet of over 2GW of renewable generation and future developments of its pipeline of wind, storage and solar plant across the UK and Ireland.

Prior to her appointment as CEO, Lindsay was the Policy & Innovation Director of ScottishPower Renewables, having held a number of strategic roles across ScottishPower over the last 20 years.

Lindsay is the Chair of SafetyOn, the health and safety organisation for the Onshore wind sector, working with industry colleagues to provide leadership in health and safety for the dynamic and innovative onshore wind industry, ensuring that key emerging risks are mitigated through co-operation and shared learning

She’s also a past board director of both Renewable UK and Scottish Renewables, helping to shape and inform the policy and regulatory environment for deployment and integration of cost-effective, low carbon, renewable generation, as well as promoting the industrial benefits delivered by investment in renewable energy generation across the UK.

She holds a BA(Hons) in Economics from the University of Strathclyde, qualified as an Associate Member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers, and has taken part in the 4th edition of the Energising Leadership Programme with ESADE Business School and the 7th edition of the Global Leadership Programme with IMD Business School. In 2021, Lindsay was awarded with a Strathclyde Executive Leadership Award and was ranked in the top 20 of The 100 Top “Women in Wind”.