Liz Leonard (Chair)
Liz Leonard has worked in the media for almost 30 years, 16 of them at the BBC. She has run her own media and communications consultancy, LizLeonardMedia, since 2009.
After graduating from the University of Birmingham, Liz worked in both the public and charity sectors, before joining Trent FM, a commercial radio station, as a producer/presenter. She quickly moved to BBC Radio Nottingham, where she was Religious Affairs Correspondent for both TV & Radio newsrooms.
Liz then moved to Manchester and worked as Series Producer across a wide range of factual documentaries and high profile series for BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 & World Service, gaining a number of awards along the way. In 2006, Liz moved to BBC Scotland where she was Executive Producer of a team responsible for increasing digital awareness and participation amongst children and adults across Scotland.
Liz is a member of the Royal Television Society; Vice-Chair of the Scottish Refugee Council (non-remunerated); a member of the Cross Party Group on Digital Participation at the Scottish Parliament and a member of the Board of Crown Estate Scotland.
Liz has been a member of Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Scotland (ACS) since February 2013. She was appointed Chair in April 2018.
Carmel Teusner
Carmel works as a Non-Executive Director and Organisational Development Consultant. Her background spans a broad range of industries and sectors. She has held senior management roles in FTSE 100 and ASX 100 companies including Westpac, Lloyds Banking Group and Sky plc. Before moving to the Highlands, she was Group Head of Organisational Development for UGL, one of Australia’s leading engineering and outsourced services companies.
Carmel is a Member of the Board of Scottish Enterprise, Member of the Board of the National Library of Scotland, Trustee of Disability Snowsport UK and former Director of software firm Azalient Ltd. She holds an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from University of London and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.
David Connolly
David was born and raised in Glasgow and graduated from Strathclyde University in 1980. He spent most of his working life in London, initially working for media sales companies, including Business Press, Trinity Mirror and STV.
David then joined the Media Agency side as a negotiator of advertising media deals with IDK Media before moving to Leo Burnett, where he became Head of Media Negotiations on all accounts including P&G, McDonald’s, UB and HJ Heinz. He then became joint Managing Director of the UK office of global media company, Starcom, in 1999.
In 2003, David was appointed by Ofcom to be the first TV Adjudicator where he had the task of overseeing the undertakings that allowed the merger of Carlton and Granada to form ITV plc. This role involved working closely with all of the UK’s advertisers, broadcasters and media agencies.
David returned to Scotland in 2007 as Commercial Director of STV, before joining the start-up, software company, TVSquared. He is currently the owner of business consultancy company DPFC Ltd. He has lectured in Negotiation Skills at Strathclyde University and spent four years on the Strathclyde Board of Crimestoppers.
David has a 16 year-old son and lives in Glasgow.
Laura Anderson
Laura holds a degree in Mathematics from Heriot-Watt University and started her career with Dunfermline Building Society as a Business Analyst. Following roles working with the society’s agency network, third-party proposition partners and the branch network Laura progressed her career with Nationwide Building Society following their acquisition of Dunfermline BS.
Laura continued to progress her career in senior executive roles within the branch network before leaving in 2017 as a Regional Director to pursue other interests.
Laura holds a MBA from Edinburgh Business School and is currently studing Law part time at Strathclyde University. Her specialism is organisational behaviour, culture leadership and engagement. She has a passion for inclusion and is proud to serve on the advisory committee for Scotland.
Laura lives in Dunfermline with her husband Jonathan.
Julie Pirone
Julie worked for Royal Mail from 2002-2019 – as Director of External Relations, Head of External Relations Scotland and Head of Executive Face-to-Face Communications. Before joining Royal Mail, Julie held roles in communications for BT Cellnet / O2, and for BT Scotland. She has also worked for Beattie Media and had an early career in local journalism.
Julie lives in the Scottish Borders.
Stephen Speirs
Stephen has worked for Cisco Systems since 2000. Before this he worked for Atlantech Technologies Ltd, a UK network management start-up that was acquired by Cisco.
Stephen’s earlier career included roles as Sales and Customer Support manager with Objective Software Technology Ltd and as a System Software, R&D Software and Software Engineer for Sun Microsystems, JVC Manufacturing and Honeywell Control Systems. His roles at Cisco have been in Product Management and Network Management and latterly he has been an Advanced Services/ Customer Experience Product Manager covering data centres, cloud and networking professional services.
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As well as the appointed Members of the Advisory Committee, the Content Board Member, and the Communications Consumer Panel Member for the respective Nations are invited to attend Advisory Committee Meetings.
In Scotland this is:
- Amanda Britain - Communications Consumer Panel
- Maggie Cunningham - Content Board
