She has served as a director and chaired a number of businesses and organisations. She was one of two women who sat on a Westminster Government advisory group and founder member of the Scottish Women’s Enterprise Group. She has run her own business. She lives in a Gaelic speaking area and has been actively involved in delivering and promoting the linguistic and cultural wealth of Highland and Island Scotland.
Chair
Theona lives on a working croft in Uist in the Outer Hebrides. She has attended all the Scottish Rural Parliaments prior to becoming Chair in 2020. A founding director of http://codel.scot/ (Community Development Lens) which first identified young adults returning, settling and staying in the islands contrary to the dominant narrative. Redefining Peripherality is a movement which emerged out the Northern Periphery and Arctic research led by CoDeL on the economic impact of Covid. This evidenced that on balance, rural and island communities demonstrated considerable resilience and overall performed better. She has considerable knowledge of Scotland’s rural and island economy. Theona has presented such findings at The World Rural Health Conference in Limerick in June 2022, The European Rural Parliament in Poland in September 2022 and the Arctic Circle Assembly in October 2022. She co-wrote and delivered a strategy which linked education with economic opportunity designed to stem population decline.