Board Of Directors

Professor John Brown CBE

John joined Hub East Central as Board Chair in September 2023. He is a Chartered Management Accountant with over 35 years’ experience of leading large customer facing organisations through transformational change.

He is currently a Director and Trustee of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice, a Faculty Member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and an Advisory Board Member of the University of Dundee School of Business and the University of Strathclyde Centre for Health Policy.

He was Chair of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde from December 2015 to November 2023 and Interim Chair of NHS Tayside from April 2018 to December 2019. He is the author of the NHS Scotland Blueprint for Good Governance. Prior to joining the NHS, John was a Senior Civil Servant working either as an operations director, finance director, or change programme director in the welfare, tax, or education systems. All these roles involved the introduction of new business models supported by innovative technology and often cultural change.

In 2010, John was awarded a CBE in recognition of his contribution to improving leadership in the public sector. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management, the Chartered Institute of Credit Management, and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

John is an Honorary Professor of the University of Glasgow and the University of Dundee.

Brian McQuade

Brian is the Chief Operating Officer of Robertson Group.  With over 35 years’ experience in the property sector, Brian has led construction and facilities management businesses covering the North of England and Scotland. He has been involved in various procurement routes throughout his career including NPD/PFI and has also been involved in setting up Hub vehicles in Scotland including sitting as a Director of Hub North in its early years.

In addition to being responsible for operations, Brian is the Robertson Group Board sponsor for the SHE, People, and Quality Management strategies being delivered across Robertson Group.

Brian is committed to driving career development opportunities for young people as part of ensuring the sector is well prepared for the future and has been instrumental in the delivery of some of the highest profile projects across Scotland and North of England.   

Dylan Fletcher

Dylan is a Board Director of the FES Group of Companies. He has 25 years of experience within the construction and property industry and is qualified both as a Surveyor and Project Manager. His experience is in consulting and also contracting both in the UK and overseas.

Dylan looks after many aspects within the FES Group including all infrastructure investments and is a Director on many PFI/NPD boards outwith hub, covering education, health and commercial projects.

Cameron Cook

Cameron is a senior principal financier within the Amber Infrastructure Limited origination team, specialising in the delivery of primary PPP transactions and long term partnering frameworks. He has worked in the project finance industry for 14 years, initially with Ernst & Young (where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1998), then from 2001 with Babcock & Brown Limited and Amber Infrastructure Limited.

In his time as a Sponsor, Cameron has delivered three schools and in excess of 30 primary care and social care facilities to financial close under the NHS LIFT initiative. He has successfully gained framework status for Odyssey Healthcare Limited on the NHS Express LIFT panel, and has delivered a number of corporate transactions. He is a Director of 18 of the Amber Group companies and in addition to his role as a director of hub, Cameron will oversee the delivery of Amber Blue financial advisory services on DBFM projects.

Nial Gemmell

Nial joined SFT in November 2017 and is the SFTi appointed director for all the hub companies, including hub East Central.  Before joining SFT Nial was a career banker, carrying out a range of roles across retail and corporate banking.  The last 20 years of his banking career was spent structuring debt and equity solutions across a wide variety of projects in the infrastructure and energy sectors.

Stephen Crawford

Stephen Crawford is the Head of Property Services at Perth and Kinross Council, representing the East Central Territory public sector shareholders on the Hub ECT Board.  Stephen is responsible for the delivery of property capital construction projects in Perth and Kinross’s £600m capital investment programme and a range of corporate landlord functions across the Council portfolio. Stephen has been at Perth and Kinross Council since 2014, previously holding similar posts at Clackmannanshire Council and Midlothian Council since 2000.   

Stephen is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and prior to joining the public sector for 6 years worked in facilities management / outsourcing consultancy for a national firm throughout the UK and abroad.