The recruitment process for a new head of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) development agency is getting underway as chief executive Alex Paterson clears his desk for the final time today.
Mr Paterson’s departure to take up the CEO’s role at new public body Historic Environment Scotland (HES) was announced in June and yesterday Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, hailed his six years in charge at HIE as “a quite extraordinary period of leadership.”
HIE’s director of business and sector development, Charlotte Wright, will step up to the position of acting chief executive while a permanent successor is sought for the £110,000-£115,000-a-year post. HIE say the recruitment process is expected to take “a few months.”
The move comes as the agency awaits the outcome of an “end-to-end” review of Scotland’s enterprise and skills services, announced by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in May and expected to be published in October.
In one of his final engagements in his current role, Mr Paterson welcomed Mr Swinney to HIE’s new headquarters, An Lochran, on Inverness Campus, to officially open the £13m building.
A graduate of Strathclyde and Bath universities and with experience in industrial marketing, Mr Paterson joined HIE in 2001, becoming regional competitiveness director seven years later and CEO in August 2010.
Yesterday he said he believed he was leaving with the region “in a pretty good place.”
He said: “We do outperform the rest of Scotland and other parts of the UK. There are still challenges in terms of the more peripheral areas, which I know my successor will be giving even more attention to.
“I think if you look across the the Highlands and Islands there are some investments we have made that have been good, such as some of the port facilities, Inverness Campus and the Marine Science Park at Dunstaffnage. They are all enabling bits of infrastructure, which you need to do to then get the benefits from.
“I think there is a lot of good stuff around the place – either big projects we have done ourselves or contributed towards and I think the region is in a good place.”
Mr Paterson said one of his key priorities had been to move forward in making the Highlands and Islands a digital region and while the job was not yet done, “huge strides” had been made.
Mr Paterson takes up his new role with HES on 12 September, but has no immediate plans to relocate to Edinburgh where the agency has its headquarters.
He added: “I will be staying here for the short term. The head office is in Edinburgh, although I expect to be out and about a lot. I think at some point we might move nearer.”
Ms Wright worked for the NHS in Tyneside before moving to Fort William to start a business and joined HIE’s Lochaber team in 1997.
Her most recent role has included responsibility for the agency’s account management activities, developing and implementing business support programmes and financial support. She has also been responsible for liaising with the Scottish Government on policy development and managing four of HIE’s local area offices.
Mr Paterson said: “Charlotte has been part of my leadership team for the last six years and she knows the organisation. So, it’s not as if there is a big hiatus. She can take the organisation forward and is incredibly capable.”
HIE’s new building is shared with the University of the Highlands and Islands and Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). It also houses the country’s first digital demonstration centre, #hellodigital, aimed at encouraging small businesses to make the most of broadband and digital technology.
Officially opening the building, Mr Swinney said: “To date, the Inverness Campus project has attracted over £100m of investment, and independent research has shown that it already has potential to support up to 1,300 jobs on site and create 940 new jobs across the Highlands and Islands over the next five years.
“I am proud of the investment this Government is making in the Highlands and Islands’ and I look forward to seeing the results of this unique partnership between HIE, UHI and SRUC.”
