 Good morning. My name is Cair Macintosh and I am my pleasure to open the 11th business in the Parliament conference. To those of you who have attended previous conferences, welcome back to the first timers, the warmers of welcomes to you, and to fellow diners from last night, I hope that we can continue the conversation. Our theme this year is leading Scotland unlocking our economic and business potential. When the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, stood here and addressed the Parliament last year, he said that Scotland has long been a source of illumination for the other nations of the world, from the lighthouses of the Stevenson family to the dazzling early promise of the Scottish Enlightenment. That illumination is what we need now, leadership that shows the way not only within those shores but without. Politically, we live in what is frequently described as interesting times. You wait ages for a referendum and then two come along at once. Elections are called snap and some would say crackle and pop. Leadership contests come and go and come again. That is before we even mention the B word. The UK's decision to leave the EU will continue to dominate parliamentary time here and at Westminster for the months and years to come. As with the economy, forecasts suggest that Scotland rebounded in the first quarter of this year. Production grew by 3.1 per cent. The services industry grew by 0.3 per cent. Only the south-east and the south-west of England have lower employment rates. Tourism enjoyed a bumper year. There are signs that the jobs downturn from the oil and gas sector may have levelled off, but on the other side of the coin, price inflation is up. We talk of the gig economy, the economic precariat and pay packets are squeezed. I am not an economist, but as Kenneth Boulding put it, mathematics brought rigor to economics, unfortunately it also brought mortis. I am pleased to say that our speakers today are all rigor and no mortis, so more on them in a moment. First in housekeeping, feel it liberty to tweet, take photographs or otherwise engage through social media and our hashtag is BIPC 2017. Business in the Parliament conference 2017. Please make sure that your devices are on silent mode. Business in the Parliament is a shared venture of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. I thank members of the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee and the Parliamentary staff for delivering the event. I also want to thank the Scottish Government, ministers and officials for their invaluable input. Finally, I thank all those of you who will be speaking in our workshops this morning. Most important, we want everyone to have their say, whether in the workshops, chats or coffee or quizzing the cross-party panel this afternoon. Those conferences work because of you. In reverse order of appearance, the First Minister is our final speaker in this segment of the programme, and I think that Nicola Sturgeon needs little introduction. Even seasoned political journalists here know and refer to her by her first name only. She has appeared on The Daily Show, Desert Island Disks and The Tracy Ulman Show, even if her real self was only on two of those. Leah Hutchison might be another figure to you. Founder and CEO of Appointed, Leah also starred in BBC Two's The Entrepreneurs and won last year's Scotland's Accelerator prize. She loves start-ups, girl geeks and the noises of elephants and crazy birds from Edinburgh Zoo, and that's her words not mine. Before Leah will hear from Nora Senior, in 2013, Nora became president of the British Chamber of Commerce, becoming the first woman to occupy the post in a decade and just the second in 150 years. Nora was recently appointed chair of the new strategic board for enterprise and skills. Ahead of the First Minister, Leah and Nora, Gordon Lindhurst will present the views from the committee. Gordon is an advocate by profession and was elected as an MSP for the Lothians in 2016. He is a fluent German speaker and was educated and studied European law at Heidelberg University. He is a seat of learning where the alumni include 31 noble laureates and five chancellors of Germany, but only one convener of the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee. Gordon Lindhurst, go to you. First Minister, when she arrives, I think that she's not here just yet. I do beg her pardon, First Minister. I had stood up without looking back properly to where I'd come from, so I'll start again. First Minister, guest speakers, fellow MSPs, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you on behalf of the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee. This is the 11th business in Parliament conference. It is, however, the first that it's been my pleasure to address. Our theme this year is leading Scotland, unlocking our economic and business potential. I'm sure that the other speakers will have plenty to say on the matter, but first let me tell you a little bit about them. Nora's seniors professional skills include strategic council, reputational management and crisis control, so some MSPs may be looking for advice from her. That's very much our day job. The award for outstanding UK business achievement, the first women UK media award, best company executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and she is also twice winner of the global Stevie for Best Women in Business award. Her mental piece must really be creaking by this stage. In this year's birthday honours, she was awarded a CBE for services to Scottish business, and that, of course, included in particular her five years as chair of Scottish chambers and commerce. The First Minister also highlighted Nora's work in raising the profile of women and young people in business. She was born in St Andrews, studied at Glasgow, and this was before she made her way into the world of public relations. PR, of course, is a profession which is held in almost as high regard as law and politics, and I say that as a lawyer and now a politician. Nora is a fan of Formula One racing and of poetry, in particular the works of Guta and Scotland's own Liz Lochhead. Guta is one of those world famous poets that is I found not that famous outside Germany, a bit like every country has things which it thinks are world famous. Guta is, of course, a great poet and one that I've had the joy of appreciating some of his work as well, although not many of you may have heard of him. Leah Hutchins is blackpool born and studied English and drama at Queen Margaret University. I am told that her first job was dressing up as Mr Blobby for children to have their photo taken with the inflatable menace. It's true what they say, Presiding Officer, there really is no business like show business. She has worked in the theatre, edited a magazine and freelanced as a copywriter. That was before her frustration at trying to book a hair appointment led to a light bulb moment. The next thing she knew, she was starring in a reality TV show on BBC2. Appointed, her company is an online booking management system which revolutionises how businesses sell their time online. She is now an ambassador for Women's Enterprise Scotland and a director of future leaders for entrepreneurial Scotland. Your product is never finished, she says and I'm quoting. You need to superpower yourself and your team and I'm again sure that's a quote that is as apt for MSPs as those in the business community. She has spoken candidly about her confidence belying a massive case of imposter syndrome, again a quote. I'm sure there are times when we all feel like that, perhaps even First Ministers. Nicholas Sturgeon has been in the top job for coming up to three years. I understand that once upon a time she thought of becoming a children's author before she was drawn to politics and began to write the story of a very different kind. Last year, our first female First Minister was ranked number 50 in Forbes World's most powerful women list. Did you know that she secretly has a second job? This came as a bit of a surprise courtesy of the news and media website Vox, which last month ran a story on US healthcare proposals using stock images to go with the article. One of them was of a woman peering into a microscope in a life science laboratory in Glasgow, wearing protective goggles, a white overcoat and blue gloves and bearing more than just a passing resemblance to the First Minister. But the plot thickens. This isn't the first time such a picture has featured online. The technology site in Gadget also posted an image of her looking down a microscope to illustrate a story about cell technology. Coincidence or could it be part of the strategy to encourage more women into STEM subjects? Or is Nicholas Sturgeon hinting at a change of career? I think we should be told. I look forward to hearing what the First Minister, Leah Hutchins and Nora Sr have to say. But before that, may I offer a brief overview of my committee's work? We've completed inquiries into the economics of leaving the EU, the Scottish Government's climate change plan, and its draft energy strategy. We've also published our report called No Small Change, The Economic Potential of Closing the Gender Pay Gap. I'll limit my remarks to the EU work and the gender pay gap. It was thought appropriate at the time, rewinding a year now, to look at the economic impact of the decision to Brexit. I think probably many people have been talking about Brexit much of the time since. But we as a committee wanted to learn, understand and convey the views of employers and employees in Scotland in the circumstances that we face. Should Scotland target the rest of the world rather than selling our wares to the EU, the European Policy Centre said that it was about both. Other witnesses pointed out how much of our trade was with the rest of the UK, what's known as the proximity effect. Yet the fastest growing economies of today are India and China, where our sales remain very low. Should we be pessimistic at the post-Brexit outlook? Scotland Food and Drink highlighted the potential in premium markets and tapping into consumers' desires for quality, authenticity and provenance. I think that some of our guests at the dinner last night did just that after the dinner. We need to encourage a more international mentality We reminded that 50% of our exports are still generated by just 50 companies. The Cabinet Secretary, who will be speaking later, said more needed to be done to expand the export base and this was part of the thinking behind Mr Brown's review of the enterprise agencies. Inward investment was the second strand of our inquiry and we learned that Scotland has had its successes but SCDI told us that we'd done less well in securing money from new sources, that China did not feature in Scotland's top 10 sources of investment. We welcomed the commitment to do more to offer core support to more Scottish businesses. SMEs need our backing now more than ever and the relationship with our overseas partners in trade is going to change. I think that we can all agree on that whether we like it or not is quite another matter. The final strand in our inquiry was the labour market. Some sectors, pelagic fish and soft fruits, for example, are reliant on EU workers from outside the UK, both skilled and unskilled. We also have an ageing population and labour growth is relatively slower than the rest of the UK. The distinct needs of Scotland's economy should be borne in mind in negotiations. Was this a straightforward inquiry into the EU? Members of the committee will be shocked to hear this, as politicians did not always agree. However, a co-operative approach prevailed. Gender pay was our most recent piece of work. We found that women were still concentrated in low-paid and part-time work, and that the pay gap primarily affects women, and that it cannot simply be explained by taking time out to start a family. We made a number of recommendations, including that care be made a priority sector, because continuing as it does to be one of the lowest paid female dominated sectors in Scotland should be a priority. Supporting everyone, female and male, to achieve their full potential is imperative, and that will take ambition, innovation and a shift in cultural thinking—leadership, in other words. However, the benefits could be considerable. The committee's current inquiry is economic data. You might think that that is a rather niche topic, but I am sure that you will all understand that data and information are vital to looking at how we go forward as a country in our economy. After that, we will turn to look at Scotland's economic performance, which is our very theme today. Presiding Officer, thank you for your remarks about Heidelberg University. As an alumnus of Heidelberg, I would like to close with the motto of that university. Semper a purchase, always open. It is, I hope, a spirit shared by our gathering today. I would now like to invite our first keynote speaker, Nora Senior CBE, who is chair of UK regions and island of the global PR firm, Weber Shamblig. Thank you, First Minister. Fellow Scots, good morning. I was so interested to hear that Leah had to dress up as Mr Blobby, one of my first tasks when I started out in employment—gainful employment or ungainful employment—was to dress up as a banana and open a dump-freece retail store. I am just wondering if there is a kind of correlation between starting out your career in that sense and ending up with some sort of business success. To the matter of the day, the overarching theme of business and parliament conference this year is leading Scotland, unlocking our economic and business potential. As you have just heard, I have recently been appointed to the new strategic board of the enterprise and skills system. Enterprise and skills are very important drivers of our and any economy. The creation of new businesses and the development of existing businesses provide choice, employment and competition. More importantly, they feel the process of innovation, and they bring wealth to the local area that they are based in, and it underpins the wellbeing of our society. The system of enterprise, support and skills development is a critical element to business success, I believe, which is why, in May last year, the First Minister announced an end-to-end review of our economic agencies to ensure that they were delivering the right type of joined-up support that our young people, our universities, our colleges, our training providers and our businesses and the workforce need to achieve economic success. Why is that important? At the moment, Scotland is not growing fast enough, and, as Gordon rightly pointed out, there is a small uplift, but it is not straining to its full potential and there are parts of our society and civic and regional communities that are getting left behind, so it is time for a different way of looking at the enterprise and skills agenda and being more transparent and more accountable for the return on the collective investment that we make in and across Scotland. The result of that review was to recommend that the enterprise and skills support system should have a singular point of focus in a strategic board and that the delivery agencies should align themselves behind a single strategy. So, what is that strategy? Well, that's a very good question and I'm only two weeks in the job, so I haven't come with a fully formed plan, so today I thought I'd just share with you some of the thoughts and processes that are going through my mind. So, let's start with Scotland's strengths. Well, there's no doubt that Scotland has a raft of strengths, textiles, defence, whisky, food and drinks, microelectronics, financial services, life sciences. The list could go on sectors that perform well, but let's also look at the fluctuations of Scotland's economic growth over the past 10 years. You know, Scotland withstood the turmoil of the financial crisis in 2007-2008 relatively robustly. We've also then had the challenges of the oil and gas sector with the price downturn. But since then, Scotland's GDP has tended to grow at a slower pace than the rest of the UK and forecasts for the Scottish economy over the next few years are to grow about 1%, which obviously is at the lower end of where the trend is currently at in other European countries. Specifically, looking at Brexit, there is still a great deal of uncertainty ahead of us and that's a factor that we need to look at. So, the stated goal of ministers was to move Scotland up into the top quartile of OECD countries for productivity, equality and well-being and sustainability. The strategic board's role will be to look at how enterprise and skills support can be directed and channeled to help to achieve that ambition. However, what does being in the upper quartile mean? Well, there are a couple of parameters to look at—productivity. Scotland's level of productivity in terms of output per hour of work puts us near the bottom of the second quartile of the OECD countries. To match the top-performing countries, the economy would need to be at least 27 per cent more productive. Scotland needs to reduce down that 12 per cent of population age between 16 and 64 who have no or low qualification skills. That jumps to 14 per cent as a figure amongst ethnic communities, and it jumps to 25 per cent amongst adult population in disadvantaged areas, so there is a need to look at upskilling. Scotland needs 6,000 more exporting businesses. That's 42 per cent more to reach the UK nation and region top quartile. Scotland needs to triple investment in business, R&D, and spend another £1.9 billion to reach the top quartile. Scotland needs to invest for business with business investment and another £7 billion to reach the top quartile at the moment. Business investment only accounts for 18 per cent of GDP, which puts us in the fourth quartile, and we need to raise that and aspire to 25 per cent. When it comes to innovation, the percentage of businesses with 10 or more employees that are innovation active is 56.4 per cent. That puts us into the second quartile of OECD countries. Do you know how much it would take to get us into the top quartile? Another 680 businesses, only 680 businesses, so it's not such an insurmountable total, is it? Those are performance gaps that we need to address, and there are a number of factors that are obviously going to significantly impact on shifting the dialogue on economic growth, investment in infrastructure, in housing, in childcare, health, energy, technology, people. The strategic board is not going to have direct levers to change those issues, but it will look to influence where they impact on the aims of the strategic board. However, my question to you at this point, as businesses, is what can business contribute to shifting the dial on those performance measures that I've just outlined? What can the enterprise and skills system do to support your ambitions in doing that? The reality is that the heart of growth lies knowledge, the acquisition of knowledge, the teaching of knowledge, the usage of knowledge about what can be made, how it can be made, and the capabilities and the competencies of people who have the ability to create and use that knowledge. Let me just say a couple of things about technology and the capabilities of people. For me, technology underpins economic growth wherever you look. It disrupts markets, creates new markets. Business is using technology to exchange knowledge between employees and companies to drive ideas and innovation and achieve cost efficiencies and operational efficiencies. Investment in R&D and technology to create improvements in productivity and the commercialisation of new technologies and innovations, which can be sold and exported overseas like medical informatics or energy informatics, most of our businesses in Scotland are not high tech, they are not producing blue sky products yet. That does not mean that companies producing everyday products and services should not be employing technology to improve efficiencies. Scottish businesses tend to perform worse on the take-up and use of certain digital business tools. Yes, we score very highly. We have all got websites and email, 87 per cent of us at least, but only 6 per cent employ resources such as enterprise resource planning. That is compared to Sweden. About 43 per cent of businesses there do. 19 per cent use customer relationship management and only 8 per cent use supply chain management. More businesses need to explore new technologies such as cloud, machine learning and AI. There is potential to transform back-office functions and enhance performance, and we should be using them. As a nation, we are also not using data as well as we should. The richer the data, the more precise the insights, the better the outcomes. If you look at industry leaders such as Amazon, like Dell and Sky Scanner, through building strategies and data-driven insights, they have been able to better identify the true drivers of their financial performance and target their best customers more directly. They have been able to accelerate product innovation and optimise supply chains. They deploy relevant technology so that they understand their clients and customers' needs and to deliver services seamlessly through a mix of different channels. Those information-based strategies have generated impressive business results. As part of the strategic board's thinking, we will be looking at how we embed technology and analytics across businesses and in the skills of our people, in particular looking at jobs for the future. Skills shortage and the potential for disruption on skills availability, which will be brought about by Brexit, means that businesses will have to take the initiative to place more emphasis on digital skills development both inside and outside their organisations. The UK needs to fill about three quarters of a million jobs across the whole tech sector. In Scotland, over the next four years, we have a need, a requirement for about 11,000 jobs, only to keep us ticking over in sectors that are already with us. That is before we even think about new sectors that could be opening up, particularly in energy and fintech. How we equip people's skill levels for future jobs is going to be at the heart of what the strategic board is looking at. Just a word about investment in people. I work all over the world. One of the things that always strikes me is the investment that successful companies have in upskilling their workforce. Our most successful competitors are aggressively and affordably upskilling workforces with a focus on competencies and capabilities, those that will drive the personal development of the individual and of the organisations that they work for. The quality of management can be a key differentiator. I have a raft of evidence that shows that poor management practices and attitudes have a big effect on low productivity. You can create a disproportionate gain from just improving management processes and attitudes. If I asked businesses here and outwith this auditorium, my bet would be that the spend of businesses on training and upskilling people would be far below our top-performing companies. That is actually not good enough for us as businesses. I will return to the strategic board and close by looking at some of the aspirations that the board has. First of all, looking to the future is being able to have an input into building a diverse and skilled workforce for actual employers and business activities. I know that there are always tensions. Until recently, there have been more tensions between employers' education and economic development agencies. To an extent, employers have chosen to stand on the sidelines. That means that what we have not been doing is harnessing the intelligence around business activity or future job needs and requirements, neither in terms of skill nor numbers. It is essential that we future-proof our education and skills system at all levels to ensure that we have the right skills in place now to meet our local businesses and national businesses employers in the future. We also have successful city deals going through. We have entrepreneurs creating new areas of work that technology has opened up. We have new agricultural energy and space innovations that have huge potential. The risk that we run is that they will morph off to other economies because we do not have the skills base or business support services to grow our own. That is why the importance of a new relationship and engagement between educators, enterprise agencies and employers cannot be overstated. The landscape quite simply has to change. The strategic board will comprise the chairs of Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland, High and a new agency for the south of Scotland. More importantly, it will be populated by a number of business representatives as well as economists and representatives from across civic society and local authority. I want to ensure that the decision-making process of the strategic board will be embedded in analysis. The strategic board is going to have to make some robust informed decisions about longer-term choices and priorities based on an in-depth analysis of Scotland's economic performance gaps and the actions that can impact on those. There will be a new analytical unit that will help us on that. I hope that public sector organisations and there is a raft of data out there. I hope that we can collect a wider range of data than we currently do, including user feedback. That should be used as a more effective way to accelerate processes, share information and create a user-friendly process that is much easier to navigate. We need to establish clear metrics to measure the performance of the system and the impact of the collective investment of individual and collective interventions. We need to gather our insights, but we need to share them not just among agencies and businesses, but we need to collaborate across Government departments. Just as our agencies need to change operationally, the same challenge applies across our Government departments. All Government departments need to test their thinking, they need to derisk operational real-time decisions and more accurately plan for the future needs as different forces impact the socio-economic landscape. My last aspiration, if you like, we need to find a way to be more productive and efficient, but at the same time we want to not only generate more growth, but we want to generate better shared growth, more inclusive growth. We want a skilled productive workforce, but also one that can enjoy well-paid and secure jobs across Scotland. The well-being of our society and communities for me sits at the heart of this review and this new way forward. We're just at the start of the process, so I have more questions than answers round about performance gaps, around where Scotland's real competitive advantage lies, what are the big areas that would make a difference, what should we be looking at? Should it be sub-C? Should it be energy? Should it be CCS? Where can business add most value? What are the five things that would make a strategic difference in moving that dial in Scotland's economic growth? What would start a chain reaction? We're all in it together, which I think is important. I am clear that this is not just a short-term plan, it's a plan for the next 10 or 15 years that leaders, politicians of all parties, business and communities have to contribute to and get behind. It's a golden opportunity for Scotland to create a future model of our enterprise and skills system. The First Minister said, if I'm right, in her speech a couple of weeks ago, that Scotland does not want to just embrace but to lead the key technological and social changes of the future. I think that that encapsulates where we ought to be looking. It's not about reinventing the wheel. Enterprise and skills agencies are critical to achieving a more successful country and delivering opportunities that will support business employees and economic growth locally and nationally. By collaborating in a way that they've not done before, the system, I think, can be enhanced to deliver more than the sum of its parts. By having a more focused and aligned strategy, a more joined up service that's easier to navigate for the user and is relevant, measurable and accountable, we stand a greater chance of developing our economic growth much more quickly. That's what this is all about. I look forward to working with you and your input and support. Thank you, Nora. We'll now hear the views of our second of our keynote speakers, Leah Hutchins, founder and CEO of Appointed. Leah, thank you. Good morning. Thank you very much, First Minister, Nora Gordon. Thank you for outing my imposter syndrome, Gordon. It's never been more real. I have been asked today to talk a little bit about the view from somebody who has started a company here in Scotland. I'm the founder and CEO of a technology company called Appointed. We are one of the digital tools that Scotland is really bad at adopting, but we are a technology platform that allows any business to take any type of booking on any platform in any time zone, and we built the world's first cross and multi-time zone technology. We basically make it really easy for a business to take bookings from their customers or their colleagues wherever they are in the world. We turn any platform, so whether it's their own website or their Facebook page, their blog, an internal piece of software, we turn any of that into a guaranteed booking portal. So it's really about allowing customers to access a business wherever they are in the world, whatever time of day, and kind of making an on-demand booking in the same way as we would with an Uber or booking a takeaway online. So my journey starting Appointed started when I turned up at Business Gateway having been made redundant in the recession. I turned up at Business Gateway with no technology background, an idea and a little bit of savings and a bit of an overdraft. I spoke to the people at Business Gateway and kind of said, you know, this is where I am. This is an idea I've had. I've spoken to some friends. They seem to think this is a good idea. Can you help me? And that was the start of a huge journey where support has been a real theme for us. We've been lucky enough to benefit from a lot of the support agencies, both public and private, here in Scotland. So Business Gateway referred me to Girl Geeks Scotland. Girl Geeks is a wonderful organisation that supports women in technology. And they recommended me to Entrepreneurial Spark. And that was back when E-Spark had just started out. I was lucky enough to be one of the second ever intake at Sir Willie Hawke's Entrepreneurial Spark Hub in Glasgow. And that was when Appointed became a business. At that point, we had, I say we, I had outsourced the beginning of some development. So I knew that there were some legs in being able to build this technology. I had no technology background myself, so it was kind of really just trusting in the agency that we were working with in Edinburgh. And E-Spark really helped me test the assumptions that I was making about building this business and made me realise the potential that was in the idea. When I was in Entrepreneurial Spark, as Gordon said, I was lucky enough to be part of a BBC Two documentary called The Entrepreneurs. And that was a fantastic experience. And I kind of laid myself bare a little bit in it. And quite often people will come up to me even now and say, oh, you're the girl that cried on telly. But I think it was really important for people to see how difficult it is starting a business from scratch. And I definitely would do it all again, mainly because it was the experience that made me realise quite how much opportunity there was in Appointed. After the show had aired, a few people got in touch with me and said, this thing you're doing for Salons, and at this point it was just about enabling hair salons to be booked online. This thing you're doing for Salons, could it work for my skip hire company? Or could it work for my language school? And at the time we kind of said, well, yes, theoretically, but no, because we're being very focused and we're doing everything that you're meant to do when you're starting a business. When I was in The Entrepreneurs, I was massively lucky to win one of the very first Scottish Edge awards. And I absolutely credit that with the reason that Appointed is here. Without that money, we were awarded £30,000 in the very first ever Scottish Edge award. Without that money, I know the business wouldn't be here. I know John Swinney has said in the past that it's the most impactful money he spent as Cabinet Secretary for Finance. I absolutely know it was the most impactful money we ever got because it was at a point in the business where nobody would have invested in us. We weren't a commercial entity yet. We weren't proven in any way. We had some early technology and a good idea and a lot of passion, but that money allowed me to hire my first developer and bring our technology development in-house. And so me and an idea and some outsourcers became a business of two people, which was amazing. It gave me the space to think about the business, to create. We were building technology that our customers could rely on, and it gave us the opportunity to really commercialise. It also had an unexpected downside that it started the ticking time bomb of payroll. I'd been given awarded £30,000, and I felt like that was so much money we'd be able to achieve so much, and we did. But of course, where does the next tranche of money come from? I convinced a fantastically talented developer to come and join me. I now needed to keep him employed. So, we did what all good startups do when they're running out of money and they need to commercialise quick. We pivoted. I thought back to the conversations that I'd had with people after the entrepreneurs and thought, well, actually, this technology could run a skip hire company or it could run a language school. So, let's look at it and let's see how we can make this bigger and kind of take it further. I also, that was part of a very difficult ideation I had in entrepreneurial spark where they just kind of kept saying to me, pick a lane. You have to do something, pick a lane. So, that was the lane that we picked and we decided to become a scalable technology platform that really focused on allowing a business to take bookings from its own website. So, instead of trying to be all things for men, it was just about plugging our technology into a business's website. This is an example of our technology being plugged into a photographer website on Weebly, which is one of our partners. There are a global website builder and it's just as simple as them dragging and dropping that booking technology onto the website. So, it's really super easy for a small business to adopt. We work with a whole host of different businesses now. Everything from the hairdressers, the car hire, the dog groomers, all sorts of different sort of SME businesses all the way up to global call centres. We're negotiating a deal at the moment with one of the big four accountancy firms. So, we're doing lots of different bookings, but at the heart of it it's about putting those booking tools onto a website. And so, this then became the heart of appointed and this then started to resonate with people, with both companies and most importantly with investors. And so, we've been able to raise two rounds of investment with appointed latterly bringing on some fantastic both money and skills and guidance from investors such as Gareth Williams, the CEO of Sky Scanner, Marie Macklin, sort of people who have been able to join the company both kind of putting their money in but also putting their skills and their guidance and really taking the time to show us and give us the benefit of their experience. With that money, so we've raised £820,000 so far and we're actually just raising a round of investment really to take our technology truly global at the moment but with that money we have been able to bring on board a world-class team and that was really hard to do. I think one of the things that came through from Nora's talk that there is a skills gap here and in the UK as a whole but we're a team of 14 now, we have a fantastic board on top of that and we're from that team based here in Edinburgh, we're just off the grass market, we've been able to really build out our software to the point where we are able to compete at a global level. We've just recently won a contract from one of our biggest US competitors for a fortune 500 company to start using our technology and that was absolutely just on the basis of our technology being much more secure and reliable than our competitors so that was really testament to the skills in the team but we do need to be doing more, I think we need to be teaching IT earlier and we need to be attracting more world-class companies here to Scotland because I think that then will perpetuate more skills being kind of grown here. So we were able to get product market fit and we've been able to internationalise and really take our technology and that's been because of largely our cross time zone technology so it's been about looking at a gap in the market for us, taking our existing technology and super powering it as you said earlier Gordon so we now are able to allow a company to take a process of making an appointment which traditionally we're being told by our customers is taking them around 15 minutes and we are able to streamline that to 40 seconds so it's about landing on a web page or on an intranet and just picking the time that suits both parties and making that booking there and that streamlining is adding efficiencies which obviously impact on the bottom line so we hope to be super powering more businesses as we go. As we've grown as a business we have continued to benefit from the support that's here in Scotland. Women's Enterprise Scotland was mentioned earlier and they for me have been a fantastic resource and group of very supportive and inspirational women who have shown me that they can do what I want to do and you know have spent time to mentor me I think being having the the benefit of their experience has has revolutionised the way I've taken the business the Chamber of Commerce as well has has been really fantastic at opening up opportunities for us and I think Scotland does that massively well it's about opening doors giving a hand up and yeah I absolutely thank everyone who's done that for us at Appointed. The support has become even more important for me because recently I just gave birth to my daughter she's 12 weeks old tomorrow and that support has you know helped me to be able to do that alongside running a company. The photo here is of myself and Hedy at the Great British Entrepreneurs Networking event at RBS and it was fantastic to be able to take my daughter along to that she looks like she was yawning she was heckling it was fine but it I feel so lucky to have what I believe are the two best jobs in the world that of a startup CEO and the mum and that's being made possible by fantastic shared parental leave so my husband is the operations director of another startup so we have two startups in a baby in our family at the moment um but he is just taking over in the parental um taking over the responsibility for the care that's allowing me to come back and focus on the business that is so impactful and I think you know that we're not probably still doing enough to support women to grow it is a sad fact that most women are in the lower paid roles the part-time roles 20% of SMEs in Scotland a majority owned by women and that just feels a really sad fact there are so many fantastic women out there running businesses and the stats around kind of women running businesses and the successes that that creates are amazing so they should be more of us doing it um the statistic that kind of blew my mind was that if women started business at the same rate as men that would be an additional 7.6 billion to the Scottish economy which blows your mind but even more so when you realise that that's the impact that is expected to be the impact of brexit on the on the Scottish economy so women have the power to negate brexit how amazing is that let's do it um so to finish they say it takes a village to raise a child I definitely think it takes a village if not a country to raise a startup um nor I talked earlier about technology underpinning economic growth and I can't agree with you more I think um the politicians in the room I would love to see us doing more to get IT into schools earlier um and wider it's about attracting companies here technology companies to to headquarter in Scotland um and doing more to support women and to really make sure that the funding stays in place for things like the Scottish Edge awards Scottish Enterprise for SIB and those those kind of support networks for the rest of us I think it's just about buying from startups it's about investing in startups it's about being generous with your advice and your intros about giving that hand up um because I do think that Scotland can and probably is the best place in the world to start a company but in a room like this we have the power to transform SMEs and startups and that in itself has the power to transform the Scottish economy thank you Leah thank you very much for sharing those insights that was really stimulating and very successful and I wish you well with the baby as well can I now invite the first minister not by first name but the right honourable Nicholas Surgeon MSP to present the views of the Scottish Government first minister thank you very much indeed and thank you to both Nora and Leah for extremely inspiring words I was struck particularly Leah by your comment that women have the power to negate Brexit I'll be passing that on to the Prime Minister as soon as I leave the chamber I very warm welcome to all of you to the chamber of the Scottish Parliament it's always really good to look around Parliament and see it filled with different faces no disrespect to my MSP colleagues that are in the chamber and standing here looking at the chamber is a very different perspective for me I'm usually sitting there being held in order or not as the case may be by the Presiding Officer so it's interesting to stand here looking out on you today after Nora and Leah I fear I have to start with something of a disappointing admission I've never dressed up either as Mr Blobby or a banana or any other piece of fruit and Gordon my new career as a scientist I'm afraid is just a figment of that particular magazine's imagination like you my pre-politics career was in the law which makes me one of the few people who rose in public esteem when I entered politics there's not many people who can say that but it is a real pleasure to be here with all of you today these business and parliament conferences were first established back in 2004 and when they started one of my predecessors as First Minister Jack now Lord McConnell said that they offered the chance of a new relationship between this Parliament and businesses and they certainly in my view exemplify the accessibility and the openness that people want and desire from their Parliament and from my perspective and I hope from all of yours as well they've become very valuable indeed I'm grateful to Gordon and the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee for their role in organising this year's event it is great to have so many people here with us from the business community to debate and discuss the future economic direction of the country I know you'll be discussing a wide range of issues at the workshops that MSPs are hosting later on this morning from public procurement to city region deals to how business the Parliament and the government can best work together obviously I don't have time to go into all of these issues in detail this morning but I will try to touch on most of them but most of all I want to focus on the key theme of this event unlocking Scotland's potential it's exactly a month ago that I gave a speech in press week setting out the Scottish Government's vision for the Scottish economy at this which is for Scotland as it is for so many countries across the world at a time of transition in our economy and of course at the start of the month I stood at that position over there and outlined our programme for government for the year ahead some very specific parts of that programme I know have been welcomed by the business community for example there is I believe broad support for the key proposals made by the Barclay review on non-domestic rates as Dennett Mackay indicated a couple weeks ago we will implement the majority of these proposals as quickly as possible but more generally that programme for government set out how we want to equip Scotland's economy for the challenges and the opportunities not just of the coming year but of the coming decade we made it clear and Nora referred to this in her remarks that in an age of rapid technological and social transformation what we must aspire in Scotland to do is lead that change not trail in its wake we must aspire to be the inventor the designer the producer of the innovations that will shape our future and not just a passive consumer of those innovations now that's an ambitious aim but I firmly believe it is an achievable aim for Scotland and we we know that because it's already happening in some key areas if you look at digital technology companies like Skyscanner and Fanjol founded in Scotland and now companies with global reputation Scotland is an acknowledged leader in areas like informatics and data analysis and of course we've just heard a quite inspirational talk from Leah about her journey with a startup that is now doing very well indeed and you can look also at the low carbon sector Scotland currently is home to the world's largest tidal power array and the world's largest floating offshore wind farm we also have major strengths in areas like battery storage and smart grids and that incidentally is one reason why we have set very clear targets that Scotland will be an early adopter of electric cars and ultra low emission vehicles we believe here as in many other areas we can create certainty and we can create real incentive for business investors if we are clear in our own intentions and our own targets and in doing that if you take electric vehicles an example we can create economic benefits as well as important environmental benefits if we look at other parts of the economy our life sciences sector employs almost 40 000 people in an area like sensor systems companies in scotland are employing more than 18 000 people Glasgow my home city now manufactures more space satellites than any other city anywhere in europe and the key point is this businesses across the country are already creating jobs and making really important advances in some of the key industries of the future not just for scotland but for the world so the programme for government that we set out announced a range of further steps to support business growth in these and other sectors we announced in particular that benny Higgins currently CEO of tesco bank will lead work for us on developing a new national investment bank an institution that will be intended to provide the long-term patient capital particularly in the higher risk areas of innovation that businesses really need to succeed but now can find it quite hard to access we also confirmed the next steps in setting up a new national manufacturing institute for scotland recognising that advanced manufacturing will be one of the key sectors for the future and we announced steps to further support a range of sectors from fintech financial technology through to the screen sector an area where we're doing well but have the potential to do even better we've committed as well an additional 45 million pounds over the next three years to support business expenditure on research and development scotland does well in academic research and development but we lag behind in business r and d and that's an area where we have to catch up government can't do it all on its own but we can play our part in encouraging and incentivising and that's what we intend to do one point that i think it's important to emphasise is that this determination to support ambitious companies promote innovation and encourage entrepreneurship isn't simply about new sectors although that is clearly important it's also relevant to many at longer established industries and see serene would join in us today innovation as he knows has been and will continue to be central to maintaining the competitiveness of the oil and gas sectors during the tough times they've seen in the past three years and as it moves into a period of recovery that focus on innovations also really important in the development of our food and drink sector which is currently going through something of a golden age there are ambitious and successful companies in every sector of the Scottish economy and in every part of the country and of course for many companies the key issue isn't about whether they develop new technologies or products it can often be more about how quickly they adopt new technologies or methods something that Nora referred to in her remarks and as she said that remains a challenge for us and i was struck by Leah's comment about the importance of getting IT more embedded in our school curriculum that's why our digital boost programme for example offers advice and workshops to companies looking to use or upgrade digital technology and it's good to see that one of the workshops today focuses on e-commerce something where i think there's still a huge potential for us to do better we need to both encourage and enable more of our small and medium sized businesses to sell their products online that's good for business growth particularly in our rural areas but it will also help as Nora said to boost our productivity and boosting our productivity is a key challenge over the past few years we've more or less closed the productivity gap with the rest of the UK and that's that's a good thing our challenge now is to close the gap with other european competitors there are obviously a range of other issues which are directly relevant to the mission of encouraging innovation and promoting productivity our continuing support for skills is essential the strategic board of the enterprise and skills agencies that Nora will chair will have a really important role to play here procurement also has a big part to play in some areas such as the link between life sciences and the health service procurement can help very directly in supporting innovation and promoting a culture of entrepreneurship is vital add the privilege last night of speaking at the converge challenge awards in Glasgow many of you will know there about encouraging staff students and graduates of universities and research institutes to start up new companies this year's awards featured more than 200 entrants and all of them especially the finalists and the winners were quite extraordinary examples of the talent and ambition and the ideas that we can see in startups right across the country and that's hugely important as we look to the future and to Lee I would say we remain absolutely committed to supporting organisations like e-Spark the other incubators we see across the country and the entrepreneurial ecosystem that is now developing with such strength across the country one of the other issues one of the final issues I want to focus on though today is internationalisation we know that innovation is inextricably linked to internationalisation we know that companies that export are more likely to learn new ideas adopt new technologies and grow in confidence and ambition so encouraging exports isn't simply a good thing to do in itself although it undoubtedly is it's also really important to that shared aim of raising productivity brexit clearly forms an important part of the context at our work here but I don't want to focus on that for too long today suffice to say that I suspect you know the Scottish Government's view we believe that if the UK is going to leave the EU something we regret then it should seek to remain a full member of the single market because that's in the best interest of our economy but the main point I want to make around Brexit this morning is actually that it heightens the importance of many of the steps that I've been talking about today and it makes even more important that we work together to ensure that we remain an open outward looking internationalist country part of that of course is about remaining open to workers from overseas we know that we have a demographic challenge as a country the hard fact is we need to be attracting the best and the brightest talent from other countries to come and make a contribution here so in everything we do whether that's as government as business but also just as colleagues neighbors friends we need to send out the strongest message to EU citizens that we value the contribution they make here in Scotland and we want to see them continue to make this country their home but we also need to do more to promote Scottish businesses in international markets I should say we've had some real success in doing that in recent years the value of our international exports has increased by two fifths over the last seven years but it is still the case and this is a statistic that you know bears repetition it's still the case that just 70 companies across our country account for more than half of our exports now that I think is is a statistic that is quite mindblowing and you can see it in two ways and we should probably see it as both you can see that as a a major challenge because it is but more importantly we should see that as a major opportunity when we think about all those companies across our country right now that don't export but may have the potential to do so so we must think constantly about how we broaden our export base and encourage more companies particularly in the SME sector to raise their ambitions at a local level the the government is working with chambers of commerce network to do that and Nora was instrumental in her pastoral with the chambers in putting that partnership together I'll be going to Ireland next week to address the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and I know that Glasgow chambers will be sending a delegation at the same time and you know to take Ireland just an example it's Scotland's sixth biggest export market and there are massive opportunities in building even better links with Irish businesses we're also appointing a network of trade envoys to champion Scottish exports and increasing Scottish development internationals representation across Europe in the last year we have set up innovation and investment hubs in Dublin and in London and are now establishing further hubs in Paris and Berlin and looking to strengthen our existing presence in Brussels but we need to do even more and I hope that today's workshop on internationalisation leads to good ideas which the Parliament the government and business can take forward together because it is vital that we see this as a partnership challenge so we are committed to and determined to work with you to build an ever more innovative open and dynamic economy as part of that of course we want to make sure not just that Scotland is growing more strongly but that that growth is fair, sustainable and inclusive we know that any quality and there's a wealth of evidence now to back this up any quality holds back economic growth stands to reason that we will do better as a country if every individual in every region has a fair chance to flourish so that case for inclusive growth is based on economic arguments as well as moral arguments and there is a very important local and regional element to that we must make sure that all parts of the country can contribute to growth that's why city region deals and the proposed islands deal and the deals being discussed for regions like Ayrshire in the south of Scotland are so important and I'm glad to see that these are also being discussed in the workshops later on but inclusion is also about individuals it's about making sure that each and every person has a fair chance to contribute to and benefit from economic growth that's why in the longer term policies that are not immediately thought of as economic policies policies like the expansion of childcare or work to raise attainment in schools are as important to our long-term economic health as they are to the health of society and it's why we also attach such importance to the living wage the fair work convention and the Scottish business pledge when I last spoke at the business and parliament session we had about 300 companies across the country who had become accredited living wage employers there are now more than 900 and that is a figure that is growing all the time we have a higher proportion of workers paid the real living wage in Scotland than is the case in any other part of the UK so that's some thing to celebrate we are very fortunate in Scotland that so many of our leading companies as well as being innovative dynamic ambitious and very successful already recognise the obligations that they have to their employees and we know that others will want to do so which is why seeing one of today's workshops focused on boosting productivity through inclusive employment practices is so important so fair work I think is a good example of one of the areas where the government trade unions employees have to work in partnership and that I guess in closing is one of the key points I want to make today I recognise the key responsibility of government to lead work to make our economy as competitive as possible but it's not something government can do alone all of this is about collaboration and partnership and all of is working together which is why this event is so important I started out by quoting lord mcconnell's remarks at the first ever business and parliament session that same event george reed who was in the presiding officer's chair expressed the hope that by sitting together and debating questioning and arguing our politicians and business community will forge a better understanding of each other's role in building a better Scotland so I hope that today's event like its predecessors will contribute towards that goal because by discussing the key issues that we face by developing that sense of common endeavour we will be more successful in making Scotland a welfare and a fairer nation and we will make together significant strides towards unlocking Scotland's potential so I wish you all the very best for a productive morning and I very much look forward to working with all of you in the months and the years to come thank you very much indeed thank you very much First Minister for sharing your thoughts with us in fact for your time this morning and we're now going to shortly have about half an hour for tea and coffee down in the garden lobby and for us all to mull over the insights shared by all our contributors and keynote speakers this morning I'm going to ask it a few seconds when I close the session Lindsay and the team will come down and just guide you down to the garden lobby and also tell you where all the workshops are going to be when we reconvene for the workshop sessions at 12 20 we will then reconvene in here and you'll have a chance to put your questions to a panel of leading politicians but until then thank you very much and I close this particular session