Edinburgh Panellists

Our top-level panel forum will seek to determine what ambition really looks like for women. They include:

Professor Sara Carter OBE

Sara Carter BA (Lancaster), PhD (Stirling) is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Head of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde Business School. Sara Carter is also Visiting Professor at Nordland Research Institute, Norway.

Professor Carter's research focuses on entrepreneurship and the small business sector, with a particular focus on the experiences of specific entrepreneurial groups, including women, rural entrepreneurs and, more recently, the strategic growth and performance issues of UK small businesses. Professor Carter undertook the first UK-government funded study of women entrepreneurs in 1988, and has published a number of other studies focused on female self-employment and business ownership over the past twenty years. Her most recent work on women's enterprise, with Dr Eleanor Shaw, "Women's Business Ownership: Recent Research and Policy Developments" was published by the DTi Small Business Service in November 2006. Sara Carter was recently appointed as a member of the government's Women's Enterprise Task Force, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Banking Alliance for Women. In 2007, Professor Carter was awarded the Prowess 'Making An Impact' Award for her research into women's enterprise.

Professor Carter was director of the UK's largest business surveys, Barriers to Small Business Growth, published 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, co-authored by Professor Colin Mason and Dr Stephen Tagg. Papers from these surveys have been published in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Journal of Banking and Finance and Environment and Planning. Sara is an editor of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, reviews editor of the International Small Business Journal and an editorial board member of nine peer-reviewed research journals. Her publications include two textbooks 'Enterprise and Small Business: Principles, Practice and Policy' (2001, 2006 2nd edition) and 'Women as Entrepreneurs' (1992) and several academic and policy papers on entrepreneurship and small business.

Cynthia Guthrie

Cynthia Guthrie is Joint Managing Director of Guthrie Group Ltd: B2B supplier of Workwear (embroidered in-house); PPE; Cleaning and Catering Supplies and Packaging. The company is based in Livingston and Selkirk, and recently received 100% positive feedback from customers in a customer satisfaction survey carried out by independent researchers.

Cynthia has had considerable senior management experience with major organisations in financial services, NHS, defence sector and the media.She held several senior posts with Ferranti Defence Systems Plc-ranging from generalist personnel management and industrial relations to setting up an internal, centralised technical recruitment consultancy which won seven Daily Express National Recruitment Awards.

Cynthia was part of the original senior management team which set up Sky Television’s operations in Scotland, with responsibility for HR and Facilities.

During ten years’ employment with British Sky Broadcasting she played an integral role in the company’s dramatic growth in Scotland: from fledgling start up employing 12 people to a major company employing over 14,500 staff.  During that time BSkyB grew from start up to FTSE 20 in approximately eight years. In 1997 Cynthia was appointed by Elisabeth Murdoch to the post of Group HR Director, on the Executive of British Sky Broadcasting Group, based in London.

Cynthia is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development. She is on the Board of Governors of West Lothian College, where she is a member of the Audit Committee, and is Chairman of the Edinburgh & Lothians Safety & Environmental Group. Cynthia advises business owners, and is a member of the Scottish Government’s Supplier Engagement Working Group.

Deputy Chief Constable Steven Allen

Steve Allen joined Lothian and Borders from the Metropolitan Police. From 1985 Steve served with the Avon and Somerset Constabulary where he held a variety of operational posts. In 1998/99 he attended and graduated from the Joint Services Command and StaffCollege, where he studied with officers from the three armed services of the UK and many other countries. Steve then became Divisional Commander for the city of Bathand North East Somerset.

Steve joined the Metropolitan Police in 2003. On joining the MPS he took command of the MPS Diversity Directorate. As MPS lead for Family Liaison he managed the response to families affected by the Tsunami in 2005 and again, in the immediate aftermath, to the families affected by the London bombings of July 2005. In 2006 Steve was given the task of creating the MPS Violent Crime Directorate. This gave him responsibility for a range of public protection and volume violent crime performance across London, and between April 2007 and January 2009 he was the Commander of the City of Westminster, responsible for policing the heart of the capital city, leading a team of over 2000 police officers and staff.

Steve was then posted to the Human Resources Directorate where he was the MPS Director of Training and Development. Between 2006 and 2009 he was the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) lead for Honour-based Violence and Forced Marriage.

He holds a Diploma in Applied Criminology, a BA (Hons) degree in Politics and a Masters in Defence Studies.

Steve was appointed Deputy Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders Police on 11 January 2010. He has responsibility for Corporate Development, Corporate Communications, Complaints and Conduct as well as deputising for the Chief Constable.

Karen Darby

Karen became a young entrepreneur aged just 22 – setting up one of the country’s first telemarketing companies, the Decisions Group, now part of Sitel. Within seven years the company had more than 200 staff and sales in excess of £4m.

By 1990, she had decided it was time for a new challenge.  She sold her share of the company and set up her second business, a firm providing training for call-centre staff: Karen Darby Direct. With two young sons and working from home, Karen became a "mumtreneur" before launching her third and most successful venture, SimplySwitch, a price comparison service in 2003. Securing venture capital funding from Bridges Community Ventures, which was subject to the business meeting certain social criteria such as being based in one of the most deprived areas of the UK, the company launched as Simply Energy Ltd.  Initially offering consumers a free and impartial switching service for gas and electricity, it quickly extended its portfolio of products to include home phone, mobile, broadband and a range of financial products and was re-branded SimplySwitch. The company created over 100 jobs and helped thousands of consumers save over £20m on their household bills.

In August 2006 Karen sold SimplySwitch to the Daily Mail for £22m, and is now on a mission to create 10,000 jobs for the unemployed. Karen is also a trustee of Working Chance, a charity that helps female ex offenders to find jobs, and she also mentors women entrepreneurs.