Gillian Bright

Gillian Bright is a Director in EY’s Advisory Services practice and is based in Edinburgh. Gillian is a commercial and procurement specialist and has worked with a broad range of organisations during her consulting career which has spanned 20 years. Gillian’s interest in joining the Advisory Board for the Swire Chinese Language Centre is three-fold: she is motivated by her ability to bring her commercial acumen to the Board and support the sustainability of excellent work undertaken to date; she is keen to forge links with the business community and SWIRE to provide opportunities to a wide range of young people from all backgrounds to access one of the world's most important languages and cultures; and she has a general interest in Mandarin acquired during the last four years when her two sons began studying the language at school.

Natasha Gentz

Professor Gentz studied in Germany at Heidelberg University, where she took her MA (1994) and PhD (1998) degrees. She has also studied and conducted research at Fudan University, Shanghai (1988-1990), People’s University, Beijing (1995-6), and Tokyo University (1997).

As well as being Director of the Confucius Institute for Scotland, Professor Gentz  also holds the position of Assistant Principal (China). Awarded a Fellowship by the 48 Group Club in 2009 she holds a number of external appointments including:

Vice Chairman of the Scotland China Chamber of Commerce; Executive Board member of the Scotland China Educational Network (SCEN); Board member of the British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS); Board member of Language, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS); Member of the Cross Party Parliament Group China; Editorial Board Member of The China Quarterly.

David Dempster

Headteacher of Boroughmuir High School

David Dempster has been Head Teacher at Boroughmuir High School since 2011. He has a long association with the school having been previously Head of Physics and Depute Head Teacher. Boroughmuir is a large city centre comprehensive high school where teaching of languages has always been an area of strength. The introduction of Mandarin to complement the German, Spanish and French courses on offer was always an aspiration. This became a reality with the opportunity to be part of the Swire programme in collaboration with James Gillespie’s High School and George Watson’s College.

Melvyn Roffe

Principal of George Watson’s College

Melvyn has been Principal of George Watson’s College since 2014. Previously, he held a number of senior positions in schools in England and Wales and has served as Chair of the Boarding Schools’ Association.

His involvement in setting up the Swire Chinese Language Centre was motivated by a desire to give children and young people from all backgrounds access to one of the world’s most significant languages and cultures and a belief that by working together schools of all types can add value to the education they provide for their pupils.

Donald MacDonald

Headteacher of James Gillespie High School 

Donald has been a Headteacher for the past 14 year; 7 of them at James Gillespie’s High School. Originally from the Island of North Uist and grew up in a bi-lingual environment where Gaelic was the language of the home and English the medium in school. He has very high expectations of all and is passionate about enabling all young people to reach out and make lasting connections with other young people across the world. He is enthusiastic and committed to a values based education for all enriched with the opportunity to travel and learn with others in increasingly globalised and culturally diverse communities