Meet The Team
Cath Sutherland
Director
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Cath Sutherland is the original founder of the Highland Learning Academy. After 30 years of managing successful teams and as a multi award winning manager she completed her Post Graduate in Leadership & Management. She then used this to write, design and deliver programmes to develop managers at all levels of the organisation.
Her passion is to bring learning to those who have encountered challenges along the way to achieving or gaining a qualification. Her team work on a candidate led basis identifying each individuals barriers to learning and helping them to overcome and achieve.
Outside of work she spends her time with her family, dogs and avoiding cooking!
Michelle Carson
Quality & Compliance Manager
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Michelle has been with the HLA since its inception. Roles in previous organisations have included being an IT trainer and managing fast moving teams.
She has been instrumental in developing and supporting the business changing her role to help the business grow and thrive. She now oversees our quality and compliance and has the unenviable task of auditing our adherence so she keeps us on our toes!
In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two young boys and is an avid runner.
Louise Lemon
Head of Commercial Operations
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Louise has been instrumental in the growth of the Highland Learning Academy in recent years. Louise is responsible for business development and maintaining customer engagement.
She has over 25 years experience of working in recruitment and business development, the last 18 years of which have been within the Highlands business community.
Louise is driven by exceeding client expectations and nurturing client relationships across all sectors and industries. Louise is a lifelong learner and having recently completed her Diploma in Digital Marketing she is now soon to complete her specialist certificate in social selling with the Digital Marketing Institute. When not working or learning, louise is mum to two young children and enjoys the outdoors and eating out.
John Carson
Learning Consultant
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We are delighted to introduce our new Digital Technology tutor John Carson. John has worked in the communication industry for over 25 years in various roles including IT support and Project Management. More recently specialising in Office 365 and working on the basic authentication migration for BT.
John has had a varied career and educational path. Spending his formative years in the food industry before studying Modern Music and Computer Aided Design at Thurso college.
A dedicated and vigilant professional John has always gravitated towards tutoring colleagues throughout his career in communication industry and moving to the education industry seems like a logical step.
Lynn Finnie
Learning Consultant
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Lynn’s experience as a Service Centre Manager means she brings a wide range of skills and expertise to the Highland Learning Academy. Her many years of account management experience means she is focused on achieving positive outcomes and delivering a tailored service to her candidates.
Lynn’s ability to create productive working relationships ensures that she supports learners and their employers through the whole Modern Apprenticeship process. Her determination is only matched by her love of a challenge. Her attention to detail ensures she delivers to a high standard.
Lynn is a real homebody, with a passion for crafts. She enjoys a good box set or watching darts on TV to relax.
Lorna Ross
Learning Consultant
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Lorna was born and raised in the Highlands, where she has gained a wealth of experience in learning and development. She has worked in Public, Private and Third Sector roles, where she has developed and delivered training to support individuals to achieve their potential.
Lorna’s role in the Highland Learning Academy is to deliver Modern Apprenticeships in Management, Business Administration and Hospitality. Lorna also supports secondary school pupils across the Highlands to achieve Foundation Apprenticeships in Business and Hospitality Skills.
She has strong links with many businesses across the region and her outgoing personality is key to her building effective working relationships with all stakeholders. Away from work, Lorna loves to spend time with her family, to experiment with her cooking and is known to enjoy a wee holiday!
Willie MacColl
Learning Associate
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Willie is an Organisational Development Consultant with extensive experience gained from working across a range of businesses and organisations in different sectors. He has particular interests in Strategic Development, and Workforce Engagement in its widest sense.
Aside from holding many Operational roles throughout his career, Willie has worked for more than 20 years at a strategic level, in the UK and across Europe. In a consulting capacity, he has successfully supported commercial businesses and 3rd sector organisations as well as Public sector bodies. In 2022, Willie received the top honour at the national CHeRries awards in recognition of his contribution to businesses across Scotland..
Neil Harkin
Learning Associate
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Neil is an experienced Training Consultant focused primarily on Project and Programme Controls skills. This includes Planning & Scheduling, Project Risk Management and other elements such as Estimating, Quality and Document Control.
Neil’s career started in manufacturing having spent many years implementing process control systems for the food & drink processing industry before making a conscious move into IT services & projects. After 6 years in IT commercial roles Neil became heavily involved in the end-user engagement and training elements of much larger international ITprojects.
These included major technology driven change management projects and the deployment of complex maintenance management and planning systems for clients in the Oil & Gas, Nuclear and Rail sectors over a 15 year period before moving onto coaching and training to support the development of project management & project controls skills.
Neil is a full member of APM (MAPM), part of APM’s volunteer network, has achieved APM PPQ status, holds APM PMQ and APM Risk certification and is working towards chartered status (ChPP). Neil is also an APMG PRINCE2 Practitioner, APMG Project Planning & Control Practitioner, CompTIA Project+ certified and is a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist on their Microsoft Project Server suite. He recently achieved the Learning & Performance Institute’s Essential Online Delivery Skills certificate, Microsoft’s Certified Educator accreditation and regularly designs and delivers interactive Live On-line Learning sessions.
