Revenue Scotland Board and Senior Leadership Team
The current board members are Aidan O'Carroll (chair), Jean Lindsay, Martin McEwen, Rt Hon Ken Macintosh, Robert Macintosh, Idong Usoro and Simon Cunningham.
Aidan O'Carroll
Aidan O’Carroll is a former senior partner at EY, one of the world’s largest professional services firms, which he left in July 2020 after 35 years. Formerly Head of Tax for EY in the UK, Aidan has advised both local and global companies across a wide spectrum of tax and business issues around the world. He has considerable experience in dealing with Regulatory matters in both emerging and developed markets; Aidan is both a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Director. A former Scottish Chair of Institute of Directors and Member of UK Council, Aidan has a number of Non-Executive Director roles in organisations based in the UK. From August 2021 he was appointed as Chair of Revenue Scotland, Aidan’s extensive experience has given him insights into both global and national trends and their connections with the rapidly changing regulatory frameworks , which is of great value to Revenue Scotland.
Rt Hon Ken Macintosh
Ken Macintosh was the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament until stepping down from elected politics in 2021. He began his working life with the BBC, serving as a senior producer and broadcast journalist on a range of news and current affairs programmes. He was elected to the first Scottish Parliament in 1999 and held a number of front bench roles before being chosen as Speaker in 2016. He used his creative, communicative, and governance skills to introduce a programme of Parliamentary reform, and to steer the institution through the heat of the Brexit and constitutional debates as well as the difficulties caused by the Covid pandemic. Ken is a member of the Privy Council as well as a Trustee of several charities. He is married to Claire and the couple live in Busby with their six children.
Robert Macintosh
Robert MacIntosh is Professor of Strategic Management and Pro Vice Chancellor for Business and Law at Northumbria University. He has a PhD in engineering and his work focuses on strategy and change with senior leadership teams. He has worked with over 100 organisations and has significant experience as a chair and trustee. His expertise in leadership and strategic change will support the work of Revenue Scotland. He is a Fellow of the Institution for Engineering and Technology, the Academy of Social Sciences and the British Academy of Management. He is currently the chair of the Chartered Association of Business Schools and was formerly the chair of the social care charity Turning Point Scotland.
Idong Usoro
Idong Usoro joined as a Board Member on 1 June 2022 and is an experienced CIO, CTO and business transformation leader. Idong was appointed as Vice Chair on the Staffing and Equalities Committee on 11 August 2023. He has academic qualifications in business and computer science and his work focuses on driving corporate and digital transformations with boards, executive and technology teams in private, public and third sectors, globally. Idong is the Head of Enterprise Architecture at Castle Water Limited with responsibility for driving maturity in data and AI technology strategy, information and security governance and the architecture practice in preparation for their next stage of growth. He has worked with over 100 organisations as a senior technology and data executive with broad experience across sectors, including driving innovation, modernising digital capabilities, adopting emerging technologies, big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and leading change. Recent board experience has included serving on the Abbeyfield England board and he was appointed in 2024 to the board of The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) as a Non-executive Director.
Jean Lindsay
Jean Lindsay is a former Director at the Forestry Commission, where she was responsible for the leadership of all Central Services. She was formerly the Head of Profession for HR and is a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD). She has significant experience in leadership, people management, Public Sector corporate governance, health & safety and change management, including large scale organisational restructuring, where she led the highly complex transformational programme of completing the devolution of the Forestry Commission. She is a qualified Executive Coach and Myers-Briggs practitioner. She is also on the Board of Crown Estate Scotland and a Non-Legal Member of the Employment Tribunal (Scotland)
Martin McEwen
Martin McEwen is the Head of Tax at SSE plc. He joined the company in 2008 after a number of years at PwC, initially to manage international matters for the group, before taking on responsibility for all taxes. He was instrumental in SSE plc becoming the first FTSE 100 company to obtain Fair Tax Mark accreditation, and is a regular speaker on tax transparency and responsible corporate tax behaviour. He is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor, and has sat on both the Scottish Taxes Committee and the Corporate Tax Committee at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland
Simon Cunningham
Simon Cunningham has been a member of the Board of Revenue Scotland since January 2021, having previously served as a member of the Audit & Risk Committee from 2019. He is a Chartered Accountant and was for a partner with Scott-Moncrieff, Chartered Accountants, leading their outsourced internal audit and risk consulting services for many years working with Boards and Audit Committees for a wide range of organisations across the Scottish public sector, and several of Scotland leading listed companies and charities.
He was Chief Internal Auditor at AEGON UK and part of the global internal audit leadership team, and for 6 years was Director of Compliance and Group Risk at McInroy & Wood (investment manager) where he established and chaired their Risk Committee. He brings extensive audit, risk management, governance and financial reporting experience and expertise to the Revenue Scotland role, and was appointed as the Deputy Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee in 2023. He has been a co-opted member of the Audit & Risk Committee for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service since 2020.
He has number of other non-executive type roles, and in November 2023 was appointed to the Board of Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Ltd, specifically to Chair their Audit & Risk Committee
Senior Leadership Team
Elaine Lorimer, Chief Executive
Elaine Lorimer was appointed Chief Executive of Revenue Scotland in March 2016. She has over 20 years of experience working at senior executive and board level in the civil service in London and, prior to that, local government in Scotland. She is passionate about building organisational capability and driving transformational change.
She is also a qualified lawyer and public finance accountant.
From January 2012 to March 2016 she was the Chief Executive of the Law Commission of England and Wales, a statutory body charged with promoting law reform.
Previous roles include Director of Corporate Services for the National School of Government and Deputy Director at the Office of the Rail Regulator. She was also the Head of Legal and Administrative Services at Strathclyde Passenger Transport in the late 1990s.
In 2019 Elaine was awarded Chief Executive of the Year at the Scottish Women’s Awards.
Mairi Gibson, Head of Legal Services
Mairi joined Revenue Scotland in February 2020. She has been a government lawyer since 1998. Over the years she been seconded to various posts within the Government Legal Service for Scotland including the Scottish Government Legal Directorate, Scottish Parliament and the Office of the Advocate General.
Neil Ferguson, Head of Corporate Functions
Neil has worked on devolved taxes since 2012 and been with Revenue Scotland since 2016. He has responsibility for six teams: People Services, Governance, Statistics and Management Information, Strategy and Communications, Finance and IT. Prior to his current post, he worked on the Additional Dwelling Supplement, led the Air Departure Tax programme and the development of Corporate Plans. With the Scottish Government, he was the Bill Team Leader for the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Bill. He also worked on the Referendum Bill and the introduction of the Home Report which transformed the approach to buying and selling homes in Scotland.
Michael Paterson, Head of Tax
Mike is the Head of Tax at Revenue Scotland, leading a team of tax professionals and tax administration staff. He is accountable to the Chief Executive and the Board of Revenue Scotland for the operational delivery of the tax authority’s devolved tax functions.
He joined Revenue Scotland in March 2019 and has lead responsibility for the administration and compliance of the devolved taxes, ensuring they are collected and administered efficiently and effectively.
Mike has extensive knowledge and operational experience of UK taxes, particularly those dealing with international matters, resulting from 30 years as a senior tax professional with HMRC. His wide-ranging and senior tax roles have been in areas including technical, policy, investigations and management.
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