GrowBiz Team
We have a dedicated team of people to make GrowBiz happen on a day to day basis - like meeting with clients, arranging events and running our meetings. Find out more about each person by clicking on their name.
Jackie Brierton, CEO
Jackie Brierton MBE is the CEO of GrowBiz. She’s also the chair of Rural Perth & Kinross LEADER Local Action Group, vice-chair of Women’s Enterprise Scotland and a member of the National Council of Rural Advisers.
She has more than 30 years’ experience in business and enterprise, including a stint as CEO of the UK’s first women’s enterprise centre, Wellpark, and is passionate about helping people to realise their potential through enterprise.
Jackie says that she is genuinely inspired every day by the innovation and creativity that people, including young people, women and those living in rural areas, demonstrate.
Email: jackie@growbiz.co.uk
Clair Smith, Deputy CEO
Clair has a strong background in sales and marketing. She has worked with a number of brands, both on a nationwide and a global basis and was one of the key players in the successful launch of the Harvey Nichols store in Edinburgh. She has also worked with smaller rural businesses helping them to develop themselves as business owners to run sustainable, successful businesses.
Clair has been an enterprise facilitator with GrowBiz since 2017 and as Mentoring Manager, leads its award-winning business mentoring program. She has also won a number of awards for her role as a GrowBiz mentor, including Mentor of the Year 2017 from Women’s Enterprise Scotland and Business Women Scotland.
Email: clair@growbiz.co.uk
Alison Finlay
Alison’s background combines many years in consultancy with experience as a senior marketing professional within the food and drink and leisure and travel industries in major blue-chip organisations.
Alison joined the GrowBiz team in August 2019 as an enterprise facilitator and now also runs the GrowBiz learning and development programme.
She has her own business as a business coach and has experience as a mentor with both the Scottish Chamber of Commerce’s Business Mentoring Scheme and a social enterprise.
She is also a qualified Kinesiopractor® and runs a clinical practice that deals holistically with individuals to help them with their physical, emotional and mental health. She has worked with hundreds of individuals to help them improve their work, home and family lives.
Email: alisonfinlay@growbiz.co.uk
Kirsteen Hardie, Finance Manager
Kirsteen is a member of, and licenced by, The Association of Accounting Technicians and has nearly 30 years’ experience in accountancy and finance.
Having spent many years working in Edinburgh in the financial sector, where she worked for Royal London and J P Morgan, Kirsteen returned to her hometown of Aberfeldy after starting her family.
In January 2021 Kirsteen started her own bookkeeping and accountancy business where she offers a variety of services to small, local businesses.
GrowBiz first met Kirsteen as a client, and she's now delighted to be part of the GrowBiz team.
Email: kirsteenhardie@growbiz.co.uk
Alison Powrie
Alison worked for over twenty-five years as a legal executive, primarily specialising in family law.
She set up her business The Sorting Office in 2015, providing flexible support to help take the load off the day-to-day running of small businesses and organisations.
This includes administration services, marketing and events organisation and management. Alison particularly enjoys using social media and online platforms to promote her clients and their services.
Having first approached GrowBiz for advice on setting up a business, the enterprise support organisation became one of Alison's first clients in late 2016. She is responsible for providing social media support for GrowBiz.
Email: alison@growbiz.co.uk
Hayley Gardiner
Hayley is the Care and Wellbeing Co-ordinator at GrowBiz.
Hayley has worked in front line and co-ordination roles with a variety of community development and support organisations in the UK and abroad. This has included working with the safeguarding team at an award-winning housing association in East London, co-ordinating socially engaged arts projects all over the world with the British Council, working on community mental health projects in Glasgow and most recently working with Corbenic Camphill, having moved to Perthshire in 2020.
Alongside her role at GrowBiz, Hayley practices as a remedial massage therapist based in Dunkeld and facilitates wellbeing workshops online.
Email: Hayleygardiner@growbiz.co.uk
Janet Hunter
Janet is a rural development consultant with particular interest and expertise in innovative thinking and facilitation for tourism initiatives in rural areas. Janet sits on the Boards of the Cairngorms National Park Authority, the Outdoor Access Trust for Scotland and the EUROPARC Federation of Protected Areas in Europe and sustainable tourism is a key element for each organisation. She is a Director of the Cateran Ecomuseum, which is currently piloting a circular economy approach to regenerative tourism. She also works as a consultant to adventure tourism businesses in Norway and Switzerland, has experience of Product and Brand development and speaks several languages.
Janet chairs the Cairngorms Tourism Partnership and, since March, the weekly meetings of CTERG (Cairngorms Tourism Emergency Response group). At a European level Janet is involved with the creation of the EUROPARC strategy for Climate Change as well as the Fund Raising and Sustainable Tourism Commissions.
Email: janethunter@growbiz.co.uk
Caron Ironside
Caron has been involved in supporting the local creative sector, working with Culture Perth & Kinross and running the online Perthshire Creates network for the last 5 years.
Also a creative herself working in textiles, Caron has an insight into working as a sole trader in the sector, having taken part in Perthshire Open Studios and other events as well as running workshops sharing creative skills. Having previously worked in a marketing and events management capacity in the retail and hospitality sector, Caron combines this experience within the creative sector and keenly promotes the regions creativity through writing business content, social media and organising Design Markets.
Caron joined GrowBiz in May 2020 as an Enterprise Facilitator supporting creative business clients and leading on the Perthshire Artisans project.
Email: caron@growbiz.co.uk
Shareon Gordon, Administrator and Mentoring Coordinator
Shareon's background includes roles in Administration, working with Young People and all things Health and Wellness.
Shareon has her own Hypnotherapy & Motivational Training business and is passionate about helping and supporting people to become the best versions of themselves.
Shareon was delighted to join the GrowBiz Team in September 2022 as an Administrator.
Email: shareongordon@growbiz.co.uk
Jenny Lyall, Project Coordinator
Jenny's background includes roles in Administration, Accounts and Operational Management in the Electro-Optics Industry.
12 years ago Jenny founded her own International Machinery Export Business, shipping Agricultural Machinery to various countries around the world.
Jenny is passionate about supporting other Entrepreneurs and was delighted to join the GrowBiz team in Spring 2021, as an Enterprise Facilitator.
Email: jennylyall@growbiz.co.uk
Alan Garratt
Alan is a qualified engineer who has held a number of positions at operational and senior management level in various companies and in a wide range of industries.
He has worked in innovation development and commercialisation since 1999, advising investors and innovative businesses both in the UK and in other countries throughout the world on product development and intellectual property protection as well as business strategy.
An honorary lecturer on innovation and creativity at the University of Dundee as part of its ‘enterprise gym’ programme, Alan also managed an EY-funded project on the commercialisation of university research and has been an enterprise facilitator at GrowBiz since 2016.
Email: alan@growbiz.co.uk
Karen Martin
Following a successful career in the provision of government funding for a not-for-profit organisation, Karen moved to the Cairngorms National Park to start her own business as a Guest House owner. She now manages self-catering property, is a property landlord and heads up the Grantown Business Association where she supports rural businesses with destination marketing, networking opportunities and general business support. She also volunteers as a Director for Grantown’s community development company.
Karen joined GrowBiz in July 2020 as an Enterprise Facilitator. She has a strong background in marketing, operations and finance and understands the challenges faced by small businesses in rural economies.
Email: karenmartin@growbiz.co.uk
Margaret McLaren
A fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Margaret has practised as a self-employed Accountant since 1987.
Margaret focusses on helping small businesses with their accounting and tax affairs and has extensive experience creating clarity from chaos and dealing with HMRC both on day to day matters and Tax Investigations. She helps and supports businesses and organisations with financial management and training and is QuickBooks Online Advanced Certified, FreeAgent Expert Practitioner, Certified Xero Advisor and a GrowBiz Business Mentor.
Margaret has also been a Scottish Enterprise Business Mentor and an After-Care Advisor with the Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust and joined GrowBiz in 2019.
Email: margaret@growbiz.co.uk
Kate McLaughlin
Kate comes from a creative background. After an architectural career that included working with small family businesses, large corporations, and local authorities she re-trained and launched her own business hand making statement jewellery. Kate now makes architectural inspired sculptural jewellery form her own design studio.
Kate joined GrowBiz at the start of 2021, and is the Senior Administrator.
Daniel Muir
Daniel first joined GrowBiz as a mentor in 2019 and has since become an Enterprise Facilitator and the project lead for the food & drink network / regional food group, administrated by GrowBiz.
With a background in continuous improvement, IT and supply chain management, mostly in food and drink manufacturing businesses, he is passionate about process improvement and applying best practice to make businesses work better.
His consultancy business, Supply Chain Scotland, aims to apply his knowledge and experience in forecasting and planning, customer and supplier engagement, and logistics to smaller businesses to help them improve their performance and results.
Email: danielmuir@growbiz.co.uk
Abi Shepherd, Marketing Coordinator
Abi Shepherd is a published author of short stories, lifestyle articles and children’s fiction and has used her writing skills to develop into a business content writer, editor and social media expert.
In April 2018, Abi started The Perthshire Magazine with husband Nathan, taking on the editor role. She was involved in organically building its highly engaged social media audience. As editor, she arranges and quality-checks the content of each issue, in addition to writing many of the articles.
Abi is the marketing coordinator at GrowBiz and loves helping to promote and support small rural businesses and community enterprises.
Email: abi@growbiz.co.uk
Debra Blisson, Strategic Development Manager
Dr. Debra Blisson is a highly qualified director with extensive experience gained over the last forty years, across public, private, and voluntary sector organisations. This blend of experience is used to support her approach to business development. She loves engaging with a variety of businesses and particularly with their people. Debra has worked in management development, business support, and training globally throughout her varied career. She has run businesses and has been on the board of several social businesses, and was also the Trustee of two charities. She is a lifelong learner and has also worked in academia intermittently over the past twenty years. She holds an MBA and a Ph.D. from Aston University. Her academic research interests are in the areas of diversity and inclusion in enterprises, and how these matters relate to the delivery of enterprise policy in the public realm. Debra is a Fellow of the Institute of Consulting, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Email: debrablisson@growbiz.co.uk
Graeme Low
Graeme is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, having qualified in 1985. He worked in a Community Enterprise support organisation in the 1990s and during this period completed his MBA.
Graeme has experience in the public and private sector, including start-ups, SMEs and global companies like GSK and Accenture. He also has experience of different ownership structures including community businesses and employee-owned companies.
The bulk of Graeme’s experience is in Life Science and more recently he was CEO/COO of a Scottish medical device company.
Graeme has been supporting the Strathmore Cycle Hub and joined GrowBiz as an Enterprise Facilitator in July 2023.
Email: graemelow@SmartVillage.scot
Angela Laurie
Angela is an approachable and enthusiastic professional with over 20 years’ business development experience.
She’s run her own company since 2014, working with business’ in a broad variety of sectors, supporting the development of sustainable solutions for their success.
More recently, Angela has enjoyed developing her experience within a local Community Action Planning framework.
Angela joined GrowBiz as an Enterprise Facilitator in May 2022 and is committed to supporting rural businesses realise their goals by understanding how clients would like to start, develop, or grow their business
Email: angelalaurie@growbiz.co.uk
Keith Glass, External Finance Advisor
Keith has nearly twenty years of experience in both accountancy practice and industry having worked for individuals and small businesses as well as within one of the country’s biggest motor dealer groups.
He now runs his own Perthshire-based practice, KWG Accountancy, and is the finance manager for GrowBiz, taking up post in 2017.
Keith has always been proud of the fact that both clients and colleagues throughout his career have told him he is “not your typical accountant” and this is the approach that he has taken with his own practice.
Providing friendly and down-to-earth professional advice, he is committed to helping people understand their finances more - and maximise and retain as much of their earnings as possible - by simplifying and streamlining the accountancy process and tax affairs.
Email: keith@growbiz.co.uk
Corrie Watson, Client Services Manager
Corrie is a self-employed business support professional providing a wide range of services to a variety of clients in the Tayside area and beyond through her company Coo Doo Business Support.
Her background is in IT, project management and people management, and Corrie enjoys helping clients become organised and focus on what it is that they enjoy about their business.
She is the Client Services Manager for GrowBiz, allocating and matching client requests, developing the CRM system and also seeing clients as an Enterprise Facilitator.
Email: corrie@growbiz.co.uk