Board of Trustees
Age Scotland has a Board of Trustees to monitor Age Scotland's strategic objectives. The Senior Management work closely with the Trustees to carry out the day-to-day running of Age Scotland.
Stuart Purdy - Chair
Stuart became a Trustee of Age UK in March 2018, a role he steps away from to take on the Chair role of Age Scotland. He has recently completed six years at the charity, Police Care, where he was the Vice-Chair and is a former Chair of the Scottish Police Pension Board.
During his career, Stuart served as CEO the Hibernian Group in Ireland as well as Aviva India where he also served on the board of Dabur, the Indian multinational. While Product and Investment Director of Aviva Europe, he chaired Aviva Investment Management Europe and Aviva Reinsurance. His last Executive role was as CEO of RSA's Asia and Middle East Region and Chair of RSA China. While in India, he led the establishment of a partnership with Arpana Trust to set up the Aviva Arpana Balvatika School in the slum resettlement area of Molarbund near Delhi which has, over the last fifteen years, supported the education of more than 6,000 younger children.
In other roles, Stuart sits on the Board of Assurant Europe and is Chair of two mutuals, British Friendly and the Beverley Building Society as well as being a Council member at the Medical Protection Society.
Originally from Stranraer, Stuart studied at Heriot-Watt University. He and his wife live in Edinburgh and have two daughters.
Elaine Maddison - Trustee
Elaine Maddison is the Chief Executive of hybrid cloud managed services company Brightsolid. She is responsible for the vision and direction of the business and oversees all operational activities to ensure the company meets its strategic objectives.
Elaine has a BSc(Hons) in Computing from the University of Abertay, Dundee. Prior to joining Brightsolid, Elaine spent 20 years in the UK financial services industry, at the likes of Aegon and Alliance Trust Savings, with experience across a range of disciplines including IT, operations, risk-management and strategy.
Elaine lives in Dundee with her husband and daughter.
Martin Ambrose - Trustee
Martin brings a great combination of Board and risk management expertise. He has over 30 years of risk management experience from his work with a variety of blue chip companies. In particular he has been Head of Audit focussing on technology, finance, and change management at several financial institutions.
Martin has leveraged his experience from the private sector into the third sector. He was a Board member of the Scottish Youth Hostel Association and chaired their Audit and Risk Committee for 10 years. He is also the Independent Member of the National Trust for Scotland Audit and Risk Committee. This experience is underpinned by his Chartered Accountancy qualification.
Martin and his wife live in Edinburgh, with a son at Glasgow University. He enjoys golf, ‘munro bagging’ and the occasional malt whisky tasting.
Naseem Anwar - Trustee
Naseem has a distinguished record of working on equality, diversity and inclusion matters in higher education for over 30 years both in academic and advisory roles. He also worked in the rail sector for over two years and took early retirement in 2021.
Naseem is passionate about making a difference for all people and providing a helping hand. He championed different groups of society and helped provide a platform to share their voice through establishing various networks. He wants to utilise his professional and wider experiences to help ensure older people in Scotland receive the quality of support they require.
Naseem is married, has two daughters and lives in East Dunbartonshire. His two favourite quotes are: “Be kind always.” And “Every age is a learning age, and each opportunity opens new horizons and thinking.”
Glen Johnstone - Trustee
Glen is a Chartered Accountant with more than 20 years’ experience in the corporate finance and restructuring fields. He has worked for big 4 accounting firms, banks and a private equity fund where he sat on the boards of several companies, contributing to their development and growth.
Since 2015, Glen has worked as a Finance Director and in a number of non-executive roles, including as a Trustee of Quarriers (one of Scotland’s leading social care charities) and as an Independent Director of a leisure and culture trust.
Allan Johnstone - Trustee
Allan is a charity executive with a background in community development, tackling health inequalities and poverty. Currently he is Charity Operations Manager with Research Data Scotland, and previously was a chief executive. Allan was also a trustee with Voluntary Health Scotland for six years and has many years’ experience in the charity sector. Allan has specific interests in the practical actions to improve equality and diversity and on developing modern community development approaches to engage and support older people.
Allan returned to Scotland 8 years ago after spending over 20 years living and working in England in the NHS and charity sector where he worked in improving health, engaging patients and the public in decision making, and in carers services.
Penelope Blackwell - Trustee
Penelope joined the Board in 2023 bringing over 18 years’ experience in charity management and income generation. She is currently Director of Public Engagement at SCIAF (Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund) where she leads their Scottish operations, including fundraising, marketing, communications, campaigning and Development Education. She gained an MBA whilst leading the fundraising and retail operations at Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland.
In voluntary roles, Penelope has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising Scotland and the CIOF’s Scottish Standards Board, and was Chair of Trustees at Perthshire Women’s Aid.
Alan Gardiner - Trustee
Currently the Chief Commercial Officer at hybrid cloud provider Brightsolid, Alan has over 25 years of marketing experience for organisations such as Tesco Bank, Santander and Scottish Power.
Alan has previously specialised in charity marketing, using marketing tools and techniques to help charities like Marie Curie Cancer Care, Greenpeace and RSPB grow their memberships and raise millions of pounds in donations.
Gavin Macgregor - Trustee
Gavin is currently Chief Operating Officer & Deputy CEO of SRUC, a specialist higher education institution covering research, education & consulting services, focussing on the natural economy.
Originally from Blanefield (near Glasgow), after studying at Glasgow University, Gavin completed further post graduate courses in HR and Organisational Change and is a Chartered Fellow with the CIPD.
Gavin has held a number of executive HR and transformational change roles across public and private sectors, and is driven by ambitious organisations with purpose, ethos and values.
Gavin now lives in Edinburgh with his wife and has a daughter and a son at various stages boomeranging between university and work. Gavin is an avid Partick Thistle fan and enjoys cooking and eating the fruits of his labour with good wine.