Board of Directors

Cathy Bell MBE

Cathy Bell worked in University Development for over 30 years. Previously Director of Development and Alumni Services, and Secretary of the University of Glasgow Trust, Cathy has also served as a Trustee on the Board of the Merchants’ House of Glasgow, chaired both the Ross Group and the Caledonian Group and was an inaugural member of the Scottish Fundraising Standards panel. A graduate of The University of Glasgow, gaining an MA in English Literature and History and a diploma in Accountancy, she returned to work there in 1987 as the fund-raising office was being established. As Director of Development for 20 years, Cathy managed the Development and Alumni Office’s twin objectives of fund-raising and alumni engagement. She oversaw the University’s development and alumni mission which included successful capital campaigns including the Wolfson Medical School, SCENE, the BHF Cardiovascular Building and the Wolfson Wohl Building achieved through the successful Beatson Pebble Appeal.

Before her recent retiral, and with sights turned to the launch of a major Campaign that will benefit the University, the West End of Glasgow and beyond, Cathy oversaw the expansion of the size and reach of the Development & Alumni Office as well as the successful private phase of the forthcoming Campaign.

Kirsteen McCue

Kirsteen McCue is Professor of Scottish Literature and Song Culture and Co-Director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow.

She is a graduate of the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford, having won the prestigious Herkless Prize for top woman graduate in the then Faculty of Arts at Glasgow and also the Snell Exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford.

She has been General Manager of the Scottish Music Information Centre, a unique archive of music by Scottish composers of all periods, and an organisation at the forefront of international promotion of Scottish music (now The Scottish Music Centre: www.scottishmusiccentre.com). She has also worked for the BBC and Edinburgh International Festival. And she has been part of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow since 2002, teaching across the subject from the Renaissance to the present day.

Kate Molleson

Kate Molleson is a journalist and broadcaster. She presents BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show and Music Matters. Her articles are published in the Guardian, The Herald, BBC Music Magazine, Opera, Gramophone and elsewhere. Her documentaries (BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service) include a portrait of Ethiopian pianist/composer Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou and a feature on Mongolian opera. She teaches music journalism at the Darmstadt and Dartington international summer schools.

Having grown up in Scotland and the far north of Canada, she studied clarinet performance at McGill University, Montreal, and musicology at King’s College London, where she researched the operas of Ezra Pound. She was a music critic and cycling columnist for the Montreal Gazette and deputy editor of Opera magazine before becoming a music critic for the Guardian, a role she held from 2010—2017. She lives in Edinburgh.

Philip Rodney

Philip was a practising lawyer for more than 40 years until his retirement in 2018, and was listed as an Eminent Practitioner in Chambers UK Legal Directory in Litigation, Defamation/Reputation Management and Media & Entertainment.

From 2005, he was Chair of Burness and latterly Burness Paull, leading the firm through its transformation from mid-market status to its current position as a leading firm in terms of profile, scale and profitability. After leaving legal practice, he set up Rimalower Consulting, which focuses on delivering advice and training on leadership and strategy to professional service firms.

He has a broad interest in the performing arts (and in particular music) and a pride in Scottish culture. He sat on the Board of Hutchesons’ Grammar School for seven years and as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Glasgow School of Art for three. He also writes a business column for The Times.

Jenny Stewart

Jenny Stewart is a Partner at professional services firm, KPMG. She is responsible for their public sector business in Scotland and is a member of the firm’s UK leadership team for Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare. She has previously been a member of KPMG’s UK Board Remuneration and Nomination Committee.

Jenny has both a Management Consulting and Project Finance background. The early part of Jenny’s career was spent in the fast-stream of the civil service in London. including a secondment to the European Union in Brussels and a period in the Scottish Office in Edinburgh.

Jenny contributes regularly to the debate on public sector and infrastructure issues – including press articles; speeches and is regularly invited to give evidence to the Committees of the Scottish Parliament.

Jenny is an FRSA and an affiliate member of the ICAEW. She was previously a Trustee of the David Hume Institute 2015 – 2019; non-Executive Director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh from 2009 – 2017; non-Exec Director of Volunteer Scotland from 2008-2014 and a member of the CBI in Scotland’s public sector group from 2010-2013.

David Strachan

David Strachan is founder, in 1988, and former MD of Tern Television Productions based in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Belfast. Tern makes programmes for BBC ONE, BBC TWO, BBC FOUR, BBC Scotland, BBC Northern Ireland, ITV, Channel 4, UKTV, Discovery and Sky, and its programmes sell to other channels all over the world. The company was bought by Zinc Media Group in 2017 and David now advises the group on strategy.

David represented Scottish producers on Pact, the independent producers’ trade association for nineteen years, and led its campaign for production do be devolved to outside London. He is a former governor of Robert Gordon University, an FRSA, an honorary graduate of Aberdeen University and a board member of Creative Scotland where he chairs Screen Scotland.