International Business Advisory Board

Ian is also Chairman of the Board of Edinburgh College and a board member at Colleges Scotland, the sector body for Further Education in Scotland. Ian has been a leading member of the Institute of Directors in Scotland for a number of years and was the Chair of the Institute of Directors UK Council. Before that he was the head of the Royal Mail in Scotland.

Sandy became Chief Executive of Johnston Carmichael in 2007 and prior to his retirement in 2022 was Chair and Head of Client Services. Before joining Johnston Carmichael, Sandy worked with Arthur Andersen in London and Zurich in their audit and assurance division. 

Sandy held, until recently, the position of President of ICAS and currently sits on the Board of PKF UK and Ireland. He is also the Honorary Dutch Consul for the North of Scotland and a Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire.

After leading global development roles in disruptive Point-of-Care diagnostics companies including Alere for 12 years, Claus and co-founder Dr. Marco Caffio realised that graphene could be the answer to providing products with revolutionary performance and sustainability. The challenge was, they recognised quickly, that none of the 2 production methods was suitable.

In 2014 they set up their first company to develop a novel material and process that could fulfil this lofty ambition. After 7 development is stealth, they raised their first institutional investment and launched their first product including their novel material Gii™. Integrated Graphene now has customers from Canada to New Zealand and is aiming to become one of the most influential Advanced Material companies of this decade.

Prior to taking on leadership roles in academia, Martin worked in the private sector, for RAND Europe and Technopolis Group. Martin is well known for his work on science, technology and innovation as well as the Triple Helix on university-industry-government relations.

He holds visiting appointments at the Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, the Centre for Research & Development Monitoring at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and SC-Research at the University of Vaasa. He joined the University of Vaasa in Finland in 2021 taking up the appointment of Vice Rector responsible for international relations and Director of Innolab.

Martin held positions as Dean at both Aberdeen Business School and Kent Business School respectively and prior to this worked at the University of Sussex School of Business; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium); Helsinki University of Technology - now Aalto University (Finland); the Finnish Institute for Enterprise Management; and Linköping University (Sweden).

Martin is an AACSB reviewer and mentor; Deputy Chair of the Chartered Association of Business Schools Research Committee; and is the Finnish Government’s Innovation Advisor.

John (known as Jock) has been Director of Abune since 2013. Prior to this Jock was HR Director, PwC Middle East; HR Director, Lazard, London; HR Director Thoughtworks, Chicago; HR Director, City Practitioners, London; Director, Psj, London; HR Senior Manager, Coopers & Lybrand; and Personnel Officer, LSE.

30 years as an HR practitioner and consultant leading his own business have given Jock significant direct experience of employee, shareholder, trustee and boardroom issues and of the complexities of managing large teams. Jock is a CEDR accredited mediator.

Prior to his role as Medical Director, Sanjiv was a senior house officer; a consultant in pediatric and neonatal intensive care; and Deputy Medical Director for Medical and Dental Education at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Ross began his career at Ernst and Young Management Consulting where he developed his skills in Supply Chain Management. His international career progressed in Diageo where he entered the world of “tech”, finally leaving after 12 years to found his own company, Dogfish Mobile, just after the launch of the iPhone.

Building the organisation to a staff of 40, he eventually sold the company and has subsequently been working as a NED and consultant/investor. Ross co-authored a paper outlining the attributes of Entrepreneurial Campuses for the Scottish Government and now works across the HE sector and has a keen interest in skills development.