Executive Board
Co-Chairs:
ACC David Duncan, Police Scotland
As the executive lead for the Policing Together portfolio, Assistant Chief Constable has the responsibility for the initiative to drive improvements to how policing in Scotland reflects, represents and serves all communities. This programme seeks to ensure the Police Scotland values of integrity, fairness, respect and a commitment to upholding human rights are at the heart of all they do. Incorporated within this is the duty to develop new approaches to working with other Scottish public services to achieve better outcomes for communities.
ACC Duncan joined legacy Strathclyde Police in 1995. He has served in a range of local policing, detective and support roles including secondments to Local Authority, Scottish Government and the then Association of Chief Police Officers (Scotland), also conducting tours abroad with Stabilisation Unit programmes.
In 2019 he was promoted to Chief Superintendent, working in Safer Communities prior to transferring to the role of Divisional Commander of Renfrewshire and Inverclyde in 2021.
He remains operationally active across a range of specialisms including strategic command of armed operations, public order events and incidents, CBRN and major/critical incident responses.
Russel Kerr
Managing Director, SecuriGroup
A graduate of the University of Aberdeen, Russel Kerr joined the board of SecuriGroup in 2001 before his appointment as Managing Director in 2003. His role at SecuriGroup involves oversight of statutory compliance and corporate risk, IT and communications.
Russel is a member of the Security Institute, and is an Executive Committee Member, as well as Regional Chair of the British Security Industry Association. He continues to support best industry practice by working closely with the sector’s Home Office Regulator, having held a number of positions including the Security Industry Authority’s Strategic Consultation Group and Quality Standards Committee.
Project Manager:
Emma Sellar
Communications Manager, SecuriGroup
A Masters graduate in English Literature and Philosophy from the University of Glasgow, Emma joined SecuriGroup in 2016 and leads the Communications Team in driving business development, and managing the organisation’s internal and external communications. Emma’s role as Project Manager at CSSC Scotland includes oversight of the Hub’s activities and workstreams. This included assisting Police Scotland by facilitating a series of daily breakfast briefings on the lead up to and throughout the UN Climate Conference, COP 26.
Executive Board:
Emma Russell
Emergency Response & Security Manager, INEOS
Emma has worked within the Petrochemical sector for over 25 years, having primarily focused on emergency management and then moving into her current role as the Emergency Response & Security Manager for INEOS Olefins & Polymers based in Grangemouth. Her role covers the INEOS Chemical and Petroineos Refining businesses and their associated sites in Scotland and the North of England. She is responsible for ensuring all legal, Government and INEOS Group requirements pertaining to site security and access control are appropriately identified, defined, and implemented.
Emma also manages a critical team of Industrial Emergency Responders who provide a multitude of services to top-tier COMAH sites.
Rob Mason
Senior Commercial Manager, Forth Ports Operations
Rob has been the Senior Commercial Manager and Head of Security for Forth Ports Scottish Operations for over 12 years. He is responsible for managing and implementing security solutions across 7 ports and 2 statutory harbour authority areas, which support a diverse range of market sectors, involving everything from containerised cargos to passengers. Rob ensures compliance with strict government counter terrorist guidelines, security of supply chains, operational and reputation risk mitigation and ensuring business continuity in the event of security incidents through contingency and operational planning.
Rob is a qualified chartered Surveyor and Port Facility Security Officer, holding the posts of Chair and Port Security Officer for two Port Security Authorities, with extensive experience engaging across key stakeholder and working groups including local and national government organisations, UK Law Enforcement Agencies, and private sector businesses.
Sonia Kumar
Global Head of Cyber Defence, Element Materials Technology
Sonia Kumar has worked in the security domain for 23 years. She took up a key leadership role in May 23 as Global Head of Cyber Defence for Element Materials Technology. Her mission is to build and lead a global 24/7 cyber defence capability. Before that, Sonia was responsible for Cyber Security Incident management across Vodafone where she was for six years. She led a global team of incident responders to provide a fast response and efficient remediation against cyber-attacks and security events.
Sonia is passionate about security and keeping people safe. She enjoys coaching colleagues, engaging with future talent and generally supporting people in their career development. Sonia spent sixteen years in different roles within HMG Intelligence and Security departments. She was responsible for maintaining national security interests, and was pivotal to maintaining public safety and security during the London 2012 Olympics.
Stewart Hughes
Head of Group Security, SSE
Stewart holds the position of Head of Group Security & Investigations at SSE, a role that is responsible for the safety and security of staff, operational assets and investigations along with the running of the company whistleblowing register. He also Chairs an Industry Security Group with broad and varied security responsibilities.
Following a degree at Heriot Watt University, he joined Fife Constabulary. Several roles and 8 years later, an opportunity to lead the fraud team at Morgan Stanley’s credit card division presented itself where he progressed to Senior Manager, and after a further 5 years, he joined Scottish and Southern Energy taking up the position of Deputy Head of Asset Protection.
Stewart has a firm commitment to ensuring that his organisation has a unique approach to Whistleblowing investigations and protections and is a regular speaker at such events.
Johanna Buchanan
Customer Security Business Manager, NatWest Group
Johanna is a Security Business Manager at NatWest Group, with over 15 years of experience in Security and Fraud roles within the bank. She has expertise in security strategy, fraud prevention and information security.
Seconded from NatWest, Johanna managed the creation of CSSC Scotland in 2013-2014 ahead of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. She worked closely with public and private sector partners to help keep businesses informed and safe ahead of and during the Games.
Johanna holds an MA in International Business and Languages from Heriot-Watt University and a Diploma in Financial Crime Prevention.
Ciaran Pugh
Threat Intelligence, NatWest Group
Ciaran is a security professional specialising in Global Physical Security Threat Intelligence at NatWest Group. He has expertise in threat intelligence monitoring and assessment pertaining to physical crime occurring at retail estates, country security and terrorism, protest and campaign activity, infectious disease and travel security.
Ciaran founded the Scottish Intelligence Sharing Forum in 2017 with its sole purpose of bringing together Scottish-based security professionals to discuss and share intelligence. This became a huge success with the SISF now hosting c.40 security professionals across 30 different organisations, and received recognition from organisations across the world as well as Police Scotland for the work carried out alongside CSSC for COP26.