As announced on 11 June, David Garbutt has taken up his new role as our Chairman. The skills and experience he brings to the role are considerable and wide-ranging. He has held senior roles with Lothian and Borders and Grampian Police, and was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal in the 2001 New Years Honours. He was Assistant Inspector of Constabulary before his appointment as Director of the Scottish Police College between 1998 and 2006. He has been a member of the Board of the Scottish Leadership Foundation and the Justice Sector Skills Council and has also served as the President of the European Police College. He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development. In addition, he has extensive experience of working with the FBI in relation to counter-terrorism programmes and is a graduate of the FBI National Executive Institute. He currently chairs the Peeblesshire Committee of Macmillan Cancer Support and is an advisor for a number of international police reform and training programmes.

Pauline Howie began her career with CSL Group in London, working mainly with the Health and Local Government Sectors. Having qualified as an accountant in 1990, winning the Richard Emmott Memorial Prize for Best Performance in the Case Study Paper, she returned to Scotland and joined the NHS in Glasgow as Project Accountant with the Glasgow Royal Infirmary Unit. She joined the South Glasgow Unit in 1992 as Deputy Director of Finance and helped in its NHS Trust formation. In 1996 she was seconded to the Scottish Executive Health Department as Head of Trust Finance, and later that year joined the State Hospitals Board for Scotland as Finance and Planning Director.

Pauline joined the Scottish Ambulance Service as Finance Director in March 2000, also taking responsibility for Information and Communications Technology, Fleet Services, Procurement, Planning and Performance management and Risk Management. In 2006 she took on the role of Chief Operating Officer, becoming Acting Chief Executive in May 2008 and was appointed Chief Executive in September 2009. She is passionate about developing the Service further to deliver person centered, world class services, as set out in its Strategy, "Working Together for Better Patient Care".

David Alexander has 21 years experience of Scottish Local Government behind him, six yeas of which (2001-2007) as Leader of Falkirk Council. He served on several boards including NHS Forth Valley between 2001 and 2007 during the period of the Acute Strategy Review that saw the development of the new Forth Valley Hospital at Larbert.

Mr Alexander was also Cosla's first ever spokesperson on Best Value and currently holds the post of the SNP's Convenor for Local Government.

Moi Ali is an author and Communications Consultant who has written a number of best selling books on public relations and marketing. She is also an experienced board member, having served for seven years on the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the world’s largest healthcare regulator, where latterly she was Vice President. She also served two terms on the Board of Postwatch and is a former member of NHS Lothian and former Chair of a healthcare social enterprise company. Currently Moi is a member of the Lord Chancellor’s review bodies, which investigate complaints about judges and magistrates in England and Wales, and she is Scotland's first Judicial Complaints Reviewer. She is also a Governor at Edinburgh Napier University, a non-executive member of Education Scotland's management board and a Public Appointments Ambassador, a role which involves encouraging a more diverse range of applicants for public appointments.

Neelam Bakshi has over 25 years of experience in the public sector, bringing strategic and operational experience as a civil servant and senior manager, a board member and as a former elected councillor and chair of local government committees. She has held the role of Board Member of NHS Health Scotland and was Chair of Health Scotland's Staff Governance Committee for three years. Ms Bakshi was a member of the Equal Opportunities Scotland Advisory Committee until 2007 and was appointed a non-executive director to the Scottish Government in 2010. She has also been a lay member of Employment Tribunals since 1992.

Matt Bell joined the Scottish Ambulance Service after leaving the army in April 1981. Matt has been an active union member since then, representing staff members of the former T&G.W.U. now Unite the Union for the past 20 years. Matt works as an Ambulance Technician for the service. He is a firm believer in Partnership working and is also the Joint Chair of the National Partnership forum and chair of the National Staff Governance and Remuneration Committee.

Suzanne Dawson is a self-employed marketing consultant and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Before setting up her business in 2001, Suzanne was head of marketing at Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian (SEEL). She has held a number of Non-Executive positions within the college sector in Scotland, completing her term as Chair of the Borders College Board of Management at the end of 2010. She is currently a Lay member of the Council of the Law Society of Scotland.

Eddie Frizzell is Visiting Professor in Public Service Management at Queen Margaret University, member of the Court of Abertay University, and of the Board of Trefoil House, a charity for the disabled. Prior to his retirement from the Senior Civil Service in 2006, he fulfilled policy, leadership and management roles, notably as Director of Locate in Scotland, the Government's then inward investment agency in Scotland; then as Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service from 1991 to 1999, where he was responsible for a substantial programme of operational improvement and reform; and finally as Head of the then Scottish Executive's Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department. Mr Frizzell was an independent member of HM Prison Service's Audit Committee from 2000 until 2008. At Abertay University he is a member of the Finance Committee and he was an adviser on the Scottish Budget to the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee from 2007 to 2010.

Ms Theresa Houston has a broad based business background in both the public and private sectors. She was Chief Executive of Scotland the Brand, a specialist marketing organisation set up to promote Scottish products and services at home and overseas and was previously with ScotRail, where she headed up customer services and a number of strategic change-management initiatives. She is currently a non-executive member of the Board of NHS Education for Scotland.

Andrew Richmond was formerly a number one rated stockbroking healthcare analyst in the City of London and a Director of Covenant Healthcare, a private healthcare provider, which was sold in 2005. He is a Non Executive Director of NHS Tayside, Chair of the Angus Community Health Partnership and a lay member of Court of the University of Dundee.

Dr George Crooks is currently the Medical Director of the Scottish Ambulance Service where he is responsible for Clinical Governance, patient safety and the development of new services in partnership with other NHS organisations. George also holds the post of Medical Director for NHS 24 and Director of the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare.

George was a General Practitioner in Aberdeen for 22 years and his past appointments have included Director of Primary Care with NHS Grampian with responsibility for all community-based independent contractor services. George has a particular interest in the field of unscheduled care and telephone based assessment and triage. Current areas of interest for George include the use of technology to support the delivery of high quality patient care to the population of Scotland. He was awarded an OBE in recognition for his services to medicine and healthcare.

Pamela McLauchlan has worked in the NHS for over 34 years, commencing her career as a Prosthetist/Orthotist after gaining her degree at Strathclyde University in Prosthetics and Orthotics. She developed her clinical career presenting papers at International conferences and having articles published in reviewed journals and also managed a department at Perth Royal Infirmary. In her spare time she also studied for a further degree from Queen Margaret College (now University). Then in 1996 she was accepted for the NHS in Scotland National Management Training Scheme where she then trained as a Chartered Public Finance Accountant whilst gaining financial experience with Kirkcaldy Acute Trust. After qualification Pamela has then developed her financial career, working with KPMG, NHS Fife and NHS QIS. Pamela joined the Scottish Ambulance Service as a secondee in July 2007 as the Interim Director of Finance and was appointed as the Director of Finance and Logistics in December 2009. Pamela is also a volunteer First Responder for the Scottish Ambulance Service.

Shirley Rogers has 25 years experience as an HR professional. After graduating with an Honours Degree from Newcastle University in 1986, she began her career working in Central Government in London and from there moved to both the private sector and the Police Service. Shirley joined the Scottish Ambulance Service as Director of Human Resources in 1996. She is responsible for HR; staff governance; education and professional development; leadership and management development; organisational development; employee relations; communications; corporate affairs and information governance; patient focus and public involvement; health and safety and infection control; community resilience and community development including new ways of working, and service redesign, in particular working with remote and rural communities. Shirley also holds a Masters Degree in Human Resource Management and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.