Visit Scotland | Alba

Meet our Board

VisitScotland is a Scottish Government non-departmental public body. Its purpose is to promote the interests of the tourism industry across Scotland and is partly funded by the Scottish Government.

The Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade makes appointments to our Board. This currently has eight members including our Chairman, Lord Thurso.

The Board gathers around six to eight times a year. Members are responsible for approving the direction set out by our Management Team. They also provide general oversight of our practices to ensure proper management of the organisation.

We review our Board members' registers of interests each year and updated as required.

Professor Anne Anderson

Anne believes in the importance of raising Scotland’s profile on the world stage and the broader value of international partnerships. She chairs the UK National Commission for UNESCO and is vice president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In her former executive role as vice principal at the University of Glasgow, she was active in building links to - among others - Canada, the US, and China. She gained an OBE in 2002 for services to social science.

Headshot of Anne Anderson

Rebecca Brooks

Rebecca is a director of UK Inbound Limited, the UK's only trade association representing inbound tourism. 

She graduated from St Andrews University in modern history, working in international inbound tourism since 2001.

Rebecca is an executive director and co-owner of the Abbey Group. She is also a non-executive director of the Scottish Tourism Alliance and a former chair of the Scottish Destination Management Association.

Headshot of Rebecca Brooks

Dr Keith Nicholson

Dr Nicholson is a former internationally-acclaimed professor with appointments worldwide. These include those within a UN-funded Institute in New Zealand.

He is an award-winning company director and a leading expert in Scotland on cyber security. He is also a former member of the Scottish Government’s National Cyber Resilience Leaders Board. He is widely viewed as a public sector security specialist.

Dr Nicholson is the founder of Cyber Security Scotland and works as an independent consultant.

Headshot of Keith Nicholson

Caroline Roxburgh

Caroline is a chartered account and Chair of our audit and risk committee.

She was an audit partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) LLP. Her non-executive director positions include Edinburgh International Festival, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and a UK listed Investment Trust.

Caroline has over 30 years’ business experience advising boards in a range of industry sectors. She also has experience as a non-executive director and as a committee chair. 

Her experience covers small businesses to large listed companies. These include hotel, leisure, retail, technology and business services organisations in Scotland and globally.

Headshot of Caroline Roxburgh

Steven Walker

Steven Walker is the executive chair at Blazing Griffin, a Scottish digital entertainment company.

He is also chair of the joint industry panel managing the Scottish Thistle Awards, and a former MD of Scotsman Publications, News International Scotland, and The Scottish Children’s Lottery.

Most recently, he was the director of corporate development at STV Group Plc.

He brings significant leadership skills and valuable e-commerce, digital media, marketing and brand development expertise.

Headshot of Steven Walker

Paul Easto

Paul Easto founded Wilderness Scotland, which provides active and nature-based travel experiences for visitors from around the world. He has more than 20 years of professional experience in tourism, having held board positions with the Adventure Travel Trade Association and the Cairngorms National Park. He also chaired the Sustainable Tourism Partnership for the latter.

Paul also chaired the Scottish Destination Management Association and the Outdoor Tourism Leadership Group.

A graduate of Dundee and Edinburgh Universities, Paul holds an MBA with specialisms in leadership and sustainable business.

He is currently the chief sustainability officer with the Active Travel Group.

Headshot of board member Paul Easto

Shona Marsh

Shona began her tourism career on a tourist office welcome desk and has since held various roles. These have included sustainable tourism, Destination Management Organisation (DMO) marketing and membership development, tourism consultancy and commercial development for small and medium enterprices in the industry

She was the first employee of the startup, Accomable. Acquired by Airbnb, this is a global vacation rental platform for people with disabilities. At Airbnb, she managed the integration of Accomable. She then moved to manage commercial growth of Airbnb Experiences across Northern Europe.

Passionate about accessibility in travel and tourism, she is a board member of the charity Disability Snowsport UK.

She runs education and accelerator programmes for tech startups in Scotland and across the UK.

Shona Marsh Board member

Board member code of conduct

Our Board have a responsibility to the Scottish public to meet expectations on how they conduct themselves while carrying out their duties for VisitScotland. All Board members work to the high standards of conduct as outlined in The Ethical Standards in Public Life (Scotland) Act 2000.

Board member code of conduct

Published May 2018

Read more about the general principles that guide our Board's standard of conduct.

Download (124Kb)

Related links

Our Chair

Details on our Chair, Lord Thurso, including his register of interests.

Our Chief Executive

Details on our Chief Executive, Malcolm Roughead, including his register of interests.