Our Training Partners

Bryan Leslie is an accredited coach and trainer, qualified in DISC personality and PIAV personal motivator profiling.

Bryan started his career in Financial Services in London and Edinburgh, working in Operations Management, Business Consultancy and HR for the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Life. In 2003 he founded his own training company, Abacus Coaching Ltd, working with organisations to develop the leadership and management skills of their people. He has written three published books: “The Useful Guide to Goal-Setting”, “The Useful Guide to Process Mapping” and “The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Networkers”, each of which has sold enough copies to ensure he still has to work for a living!

Bryan’s main areas of expertise are:
• Growing leadership and management skills
• Facilitating behavioural change through high impact training
• Project, programme and change management
• Developing high performance teams
• Understanding key financial concepts relevant to your role in the organisation

Mark Douglas is a Partner in Blue Ptarmigan, Management Consultancy focusing on ‘helping people achieve more than they ever thought possible’. With specific expertise in leadership and management development, coaching for both individuals & teams, change management, group and programme facilitation and project management, with a proven track record of delivering significant improvements and results. He has extensive experience in partnering with directors, senior leaders/ managers and professionals, in the design and delivery of leadership and management development interventions for SME’s, public sector bodies, third sector organisations and large corporations.

He has been a retail manager, healthcare manager, change management consultant, led various functions including Supply Chain & Operations, HR, Learning & Development and Property Development for a major multinational company, he is also a business mentor and coach with the Princes Trust.

When not working he is a keen cyclist, hill walker, skier in fact anything outdoors. And on the dark winter nights he can be found in his shed tinkering with old cars and motorbikes.

A Senior Social Media Marketing Director with around 25 years’ experience in B2C and B2B marketing. Fin is the only accredited Facebook and Instagram trainer in Scotland and leads the #SheMeansBusiness initiative to support more women to start and grow their business with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.

Fin has trained and worked with a number of leading organisations to improve their sales via social media including more recently Skyscanner, Shepherd and Wedderburn, Meltwater, Hiscox, Sustrans, TSB and Tesco Bank. Experience of marketing across all sectors, including startup, consumer, small and medium business, large enterprise, private and public vertical sectors, and global.

Fin is a regular contributor to the BBC, both TV and Radio, on the digital and social media economy as well as publications such as The Guardian, Women in Trade, BQ Scotland, SBBN, and Scottish Entrepreneur.

Fin has won a number of prestigious awards and accolades including:

• Top 5 Marketing Adviser 2019 by Enterprise Nation
• “Woman of Inspiration 2018” by the Association of Scottish Women in Business
• “Outstanding Contribution” 2019 by ASW
• Advisor to 10 Downing St
• Advisor to the Scottish Parliament

Sue Wright, Manging Director of Exporter Services, began her International career over 30 years ago as a junior Shipping Clerk for an Engineering and Manufacturing Company. Inspired by her work she quickly progressed and saw this as a career path going on to study to post Graduate level with The Institute of Export.

Sue moved on after several years to take up a Shipping Managers role for an engineering company. The work involved project managing contracts of supply and delivery across the world and working with Letters of Credit for payment.  There were multiple parties involved in the cross-trade movements with Customs and HMRC compliancy being paramount.  Some of this work involved Special Import Procedures, Import Licences and Controls of various items.

In 2010, with this vast amount of knowledge, Sue started Exporter Services. Initially as a trainer, she delivered courses in various areas of International Trade. Training expanded as planned and in phase two of the growth plan, the business developed into a support service for those SME’s who required technical support and assistance in the how and why of International Trade movement of goods.

James Tudor has been working with Exporter Services since August 2022 and has developed a passion for all areas of International trade training. James focuses on all areas of Export and Import processes, with a particular interest in Incoterms, Commodity codes and Rules of Origin. He develops training courses which encourage engagement and discussion among delegates in an effort to allow delegates to explore both their own and each other’s experiences.

Before moving into International Trade James’ career was primarily in Secondary School and Adult education, working in this field for 12 years. James is also a Geography graduate who specialised in Economic and Political Geography. His knowledge, therefore, has a strong rooting in international trade and global economic systems.