ALARM Scotland seminar

Luciana Blaha

Assistant Professor in Business Management and Intelligent Automation, Heriot-Watt University

Dr. Luciana Blaha leads the Intelligent Automation Systems (IAS) Lab at Heriot-Watt University and is a part of the Human Factors Team in Transit, the UK's Digital Twin for Transport Decarbonisation Hub. She has worked in the public, private and third sector for 12 years before moving to academia. She has been an editor of the first AI Playbook of the Scottish AI Alliance, committee member for the Edinburgh BCS-Chartered Institute for IT and is currently a member of the Scottish Parliament Academia Network. Her work looks at how AI and intelligent automation are made sense of and integrated into organisations.

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Chunche Lee

Researcher, GoLLM

Chunche Lee is a researcher trained in anthropology and linguistics, currently based in Edinburgh and originally from Taiwan. His work mainly involves qualitative document and discourse analysis, supported by quantitative analysis. He has research experience in both academic and industry settings and has collaborated on projects addressing issues of cultural translation and contact. He is particularly interested in mixed-methods research that translates into meaningful impact.

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Karen Locke

Strategic Risk & Insurance Services Manager, Renfrewshire Council

Karen has over 20 years’ experience working in risk management; the first 5 years with the NHS and thereafter in local government. She is currently the Risk Manager at Renfrewshire Council. Karen enjoys building lasting relationships with other risk and insurance professionals and finds great value in learning and sharing best practice together. Karen is currently the President of ALARM and leads the Leadership & Influence portfolio.

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Sara MacKenzie

Enterprise Risk Manager, Police Scotland

Sara leads the Enterprise Risk Management team within Police Scotland, with responsibility for risk management, insurance and business continuity. Sara has seven years' experience in risk management, starting out as a Risk Management Officer in Police Scotland after holding several other policing roles, and gained her certificates in Enterprise Risk Management and Digital Risk Management from the Institute of Risk Management. She then moved to NHS Forth Valley as Corporate Risk Manager, before moving back to Police Scotland as Enterprise Risk Manager. Sara has been an ALARM member since becoming involved in risk management and is currently the Vice Chair of the Scotland Committee. 

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Iain MacNab

Head of Risk Management Policy, Scottish Government

Iain is currently the Head of the Risk Team at the Scottish Government, responsible for the delivery and implementation of the organisation's risk management policy, working in the second-line to improve risk management practice. An IRM certified risk management professional, Iain has worked in risk and governance roles within the public and private sectors with stints at the Student Loans Company, the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Scotland's largest independent accountancy firm, Johnston Carmichael.

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Michelle McMillan

Chief Risk Officer, City of Edinburgh Council

Michelle has worked in local authority risk management for over 20 years. Having started her career with Shropshire County Council and now working as Chief Risk Officer at City of Edinburgh Council supporting colleagues in Risk Management as part of the Council Corporate Risk Management team.

Working as Module Coach for the Institute of Risk Management, Michelle supports students in the penultimate part of the Institute of Risk Management International Diploma in Risk Management (Resilience, Perception and Society module). Michelle has a particular interest in Resilience and Risk Culture in the workplace.

Michelle enjoys crafting as well as all the benefits of living in Edinburgh with great walks, restaurants and shopping there is always plenty to do!

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Craig Paterson

Senior Risk Advisor, City of Edinburgh Council

Craig is a Senior Risk Advisor for The City of Edinburgh Council. He has an MSc in Risk Management and has worked in the public sector for five years at numerous Scottish local authorities. Craig also has a background in emergency planning, business continuity and has a BSc in Computing.

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Daniel Shorr

CEO, GoLLM

Daniel Shorr is the Founder and CEO of GoLLM an Edinburgh-based AI company offering a feedback-to-insights platform, D.A.V.E. (Dynamic Analytics Visualisation Engine). He has worked in partnerships and product development across Tier 1 banking, government, frontier AI in academia, and the third sector in the UK, US, and Asia. For organisations, D.A.V.E. standardises and accelerates insight production across customer, people, and research teams - reducing analyst time and informing smarter decisions. It digests diverse feedback data such as surveys, images, interviews, time-series, and produces consistent, executive-ready reporting at scale with auditability and governance in mind.

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