Scottish Business Forum: Leadership, legal challenges, & the economy in 2024

Stephen Blackman

Principal Economist, Strategy & Corporate Development, NatWest

No bio provided

Lorna Davis

Partner, Harper Macleod LLP

Lorna is a Partner and Law Society of Scotland Accredited Specialist, based in Glasgow, working for clients throughout Scotland and beyond.

Ranked in this year’s Chambers UK Guide to the Legal Profession as a “Ranked Lawyer” in Employment. Sources say: “Her breadth and depth of knowledge is impressive,” and add that “she’s well-grounded and practical, but has a personal approach.”

Lorna is also listed by The Legal 500 as a “Recommended Lawyer” in Employment law.

Lorna advises both employers and employees on contentious and non-contentious employment matters and has acted for a diverse range of clients including SMEs, large employers, public sector employers, higher and further education establishments and a High Commission.

Lorna advises clients in relation to all employment law and HR matters including unfair dismissal, settlement agreements, redundancy, industrial relations, discrimination, whistleblowing, breach of contract claims and the employment law aspects of mergers, acquisitions, disposals and restructures (TUPE in particular).

Lorna appears at Employment Tribunals throughout Scotland and at the Employment Appeal Tribunal sitting in Edinburgh and has significant experience of engaging in judicial mediation on behalf of employer clients at the Employment Tribunal. Recent work highlights include:

• successfully representing a public body in the first appellate level social media misconduct case;
• acting in the successful defence of a complex and widely reported indirect disability discrimination claim at the Employment Appeal Tribunal where the issue was the correct interpretation of the rules relating to sight impairments and the application of the Equality Act 2010; and
• acting on behalf of a sports’ governing body in relation to two high profile senior level exits.

Lorna also has significant experience of Sheriff Court and Court of Session cases involving business protection and in particular, the protection of confidential information by way of the enforcement of restrictive covenants by way of interdict and/or damages actions.

Separately to Lorna’s primary practice, Lorna acts for employees in professional regulatory hearings including the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC(S)), the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC).

Ashley Fleming

Senior Associate, Harper Macleod LLP

Ashley specialises in immigration, asylum and nationality law and has extensive experience advising businesses and individuals on all aspects of UK immigration law having worked in this area since 2005. She is dual qualified in Scotland and England & Wales.

Ashley regularly acts for businesses, providing strategic advice to corporate clients to assist with their business planning, most recently in relation to Brexit and sponsorship under the skilled worker route. She also represents clients in defending civil penalty notices for allegedly employing illegal workers.

Ashley has significant experience of working with high-net-worth individuals and entrepreneurs. She also has particular expertise in obtaining endorsements for clients under the Global Talent Visa scheme.

Ashley regularly assists clients with their family-based applications, EU Settlement Scheme applications and applications for naturalisation. She is often instructed to provide expert reports for the courts in care proceedings and acts for local authorities, providing advice and training in relation to children and young persons in care.

In addition to her advisory work, Ashley is a skilled litigator, with experience of litigating cases at all levels from the First Tier Tribunal to the Court of Justice of the EU. Ashley also has a particular interest in complex EU law and recently acted for a national charity in a successful judicial review challenge of Home Office Covid-19 guidance which resulted in a positive change to government policy guidance.

Ashley is a regular trainer for the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association and writes on developments in immigration law and is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales Immigration Law Committee. She is also ranked in Immigration in both the UK’s leading legal directories The Legal 500 and Chambers UK.

Kai Murray

APSCo Advisor, KAICONSULTANCY.COM LTD

Kai specialises in guiding business leaders and their teams to play a bigger game effectively and sustainably.

She has a real passion for helping leaders who are serious about change, and is familiar with the often-lonely challenges facing the entrepreneur. She brings a wealth of experience and a strong track record of building highly successful teams and implementing structures and systems to improve long-term performance.

Kai spent over 10 years as Managing Director of Search Consultancy, becoming part of the management buy-in/buy-out team in February 2000. Whilst firmly establishing Search as the leading independent player in Scotland, the successful foot print was rolled out south of the border, opening locations in Manchester, Crawley, Leicester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham and London, and increasing staff numbers from 170 to over 600. As a result, Search was recognised as one of the UK’s 100 fastest growing private companies in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ ‘Profit Track 100’ and Kai was acknowledged as Business Women of the Year.

The company turnover on exit (end 2007) was over £120m and NFI had grown at 20% year on year for the previous 5 years.

As well as supporting businesses to accelerate growth Kai has also helped a number of her clients to sell their business either through a trade sale or MBO. She is currently a Non Exec Director for Be IT resourcing, Firefish Software and PMP plc.

Kai has an MBA from Edinburgh University Management School and her dissertation title was ‘Managing Change in the Pharmaceutical Industry.’