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What is your background?

I began my studies in physical geography, developing an understanding for the earth’s physical systems and the mechanisms of the climate crisis. This rose questions that stimulated focus into the causes, specialising in my final year with sustainable business and environmental economics-based geographies. Still wanting to further uncover, I pursued my Masters in Global Strategy and Sustainability, where I engaged with business and finance interactions with climate mechanisms, developing my thesis on the management systems that facilitate profit and planet. During this time, I supported a consultancy project development of a Net Zero Adaptation Toolkit.

What are your professional interests?

My professional interests lie broadly under the banner of sustainability. I have particular interest in carbon management, innovation development strategy and transitional economics (including ETS, carbon pricing, biodiversity and offsetting). Beyond this, I enjoy the cross-sector pollination of ideas, utilising challenges to support multiple sectors to create systems-level solutions. Everything kind of touches sustainability now and for me, it is always interesting to discuss cross-sector conflict and potential complimentary solutions through systems thinking.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I enjoy getting outside and exercising as much as possible. Running is probably my main outlet currently, but I also love cycling, hiking, golf, tennis, swimming, climbing and will give any sport a go. I very much enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes/ideas with some good music – which usually very quickly follows the exercise. Basically, any way to explore the beautiful landscapes Scotland has to offer followed by some good food (ideally a pastry and coffee) is an ideal day to me.

What have you enjoyed most about working at Optimat so far and what are you looking forward to working on?

I have loved the culture of Optimat, everyone has been so friendly and welcoming. I am looking forward to getting stuck into some projects and learning from the wealth of experience that Optimat has to develop my own knowledge-base. It is really stimulating hearing about the range of projects that are going on at any one time. I am particularly excited at this time of sustainable innovations and the potential Scotland and the UK has to propel itself to the forefront of emission reduction and technological solutions.

Who would your top three dinner party guests be and why?

This is a tough one, on a whim I would probably go for David Attenborough, Nims Dai and David Gilmour with special guest Yotam Ottolenghi as chef. There would be some amazing expedition stories told as well as music and food with general chat about the environment.