David Gass

David has been a Partner with Upper Quartile since 2010, and brings over 20 years experience at manager, director and chief executive level; managing and delivering a wide range of complex and challenging economic, business and international development programmes, particularly for the SME sector.

He specialises in strategy development and delivery at industry, regional and national level; SME development and support; and international trade development. He has in depth experience of a wide range of sectors, in particular food & drink, agriculture, textiles, construction and forestry. He has worked extensively in the field of rural economic development and capacity building; industry supply chain development and value chain analysis; and regional economic development.

David leads Upper Quartile's work in the UK, and has led a range of projects from the development of a refreshed national construction strategy and action plan; to market assessments of the Harris Tweed and the Scottish Interiors sectors. He leads the Upper Quartile delivery of international trade and export support programmes to companies; and has developed and delivered a range of Preparing to Export courses, and export support programmes under the Smart Exporter initiative across Scotland. He has worked for a range of private sector clients across adventure sports and tourism companies, to European Structural Funds bodies and the development of commercialisation strategies for the HE sector, and social enterprise and co-operative development initiatives. David brings strong people and team management skills, and experience in coaching and mentoring senior staff and organisational development. He is a very experienced presenter, and has delivered many strategy and international workshops and seminars to businesses, and delivered a wide range of senior industry stakeholder consultation projects.

Prior to joining Upper Quartile in 2010, David was a expert peer reviewer for the OECD territorial review of the NORA region with a focus on economic analysis and development, SME and trade growth and co-operation. He was a senior director and Regional Development Agency CEO with Scottish Enterprise responsible for regional economic development including key industry sector studies and development; SME growth; business support services, and employment and training programmes. David also led Scottish Enterprise's work nationally in the area of agriculture and rural development over a 10 year period from 2000-2010.

David is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and current Board member of Sportscotland, and the Scottish Sports Trust Company. He has a proven tack record of delivery at strategic and operational level, in researching, developing, managing and delivering across a wide range of regeneration and regional investment, and rural development projects, nationally and internationally.

David is Hostile Environment Trained (HET), and comfortable working in challenging environments.

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