Meet The Team

Shona Littlejohn

Chair

Shona Littlejohn has recently retired from The Open University in Scotland where she was Depute Director Student Experience and Widening Access and acted as mental health lead. Prior to that she was Vice-Principal at Robert Gordon University where her portfolio covered student experience, including the wellbeing and counselling service. Read more

Shona has also worked as a volunteer and latterly volunteer and client co-ordinator for a social enterprise working with those experiencing long-term and enduring learning disabilities and mental health issues; and is a former board member of Banff and Buchan College and also North East Scotland College. Shona lives in Edinburgh and loves walking – city streets, hills and country paths and beaches. Her interest in mental health comes from both her professional and lived experience.

Evelyn Simpson

Vice-Chair

Evelyn is a business coach, trainer, mentor, and NXD. She has worked extensively with high growth companies and their founders on leadership, strategy and funding. She has a particular passion for supporting and advocating for female founders. While living internationally, she ran her own coaching and training company and worked for over a decade in investment banking for JP Morgan Chase. Read more

Evelyn was previously Chair of Venture Scotland, a charity delivering long term personal development programmes in the outdoors to vulnerable young adults. She has an MA in Economics and Law from the University of Edinburgh and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Evelyn lives with her husband in St Andrews where she can be found either walking her dog on the beach, surfing or swimming most days.

Ross McAdam

Trustee

Ross is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland (ICAS) and is currently the CFO of Embrace Steel Group, a UK-wide steel fabrication business. Read more

He is passionate about the importance of good mental health and wellbeing, particularly amongst young men and in the workplace. Ross lives in Glasgow with his wife and two children, is a passionate football fan, cyclist and average golfer.

Stuart Mackenzie

Trustee

Stuart is a leading marketing and communications professional with over 15 years of experience, predominantly in the sport, entertainment and FMCG sectors. He is passionate about mental health in the workplace, and the links between mental health and creativity, productivity, and overall business performance. Read more

Stuart spent over a decade volunteering with Commonwealth Games Scotland, representing Team Scotland as a member of the general team management for the 2010 Games in Delhi, the Isle of Man Youth Games in 2011, Glasgow 2014, and finally at the Gold Coast in 2018. His love of sport transcends into his personal life where he is a firm believer that it’s the taking part that counts.

Rachel Birch

Trustee

Rachel is an experienced third sector trustee and director, having held board positions within Community Interest Companies, a local community Trust, and vice chair of a multi-award-winning national charity (SCIO). In these roles, Rachel has provided expertise and led projects in governance, strategy, accessibility, inclusion, neurodivergence, community development, and large-scale change projects. Rachel also brings a decade of experience in a range of service delivery, management, senior leadership, and consultancy roles, in autism, social care and support, mental health, and national policy and legislation. Read more

Rachel’s core passion is in creating large scale system and culture change which enables accessibility, inclusion, and wellbeing for all. She is particularly passionate about ensuring people have a voice and power in decisions and subjects which impact them. Rachel’s interest and drive in this work comes from her own personal experiences as an autistic and neurodivergent person who has experienced challenges in her mental health from a young age. She has also experienced mental health challenges from a peer and carer perspective within her family and friendship circles, including often highly stigmatised diagnosis such as schizophrenia. These experiences have cemented her belief in the vital importance of reducing shame and stigmas within mental health. In addition to her trustee role at SAMH, Rachel is a co-researcher at STARTS Network, where she has been a co-author in a peer reviewed research paper published in the leading journal Autism, and is currently working on a research project into autistic people in Scotland’s research priority of mental health. Rachel lives in Moray, in the North East of Scotland with her wife and son, and has had first-hand experience of SAMH’s Moray support services

Ruth Moss

Trustee

Ruth’s background is in nursing and health care research and she is currently a Clinical Research Nurse Manager in NHS Lothian, overseeing the delivery of commercial and academic research trials. As a member of the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group, she led the development of support services for people bereaved by suicide, and suicide crisis support. Read more

Ruth is a Lived Experience Panel member for ‘Samaritans’, and has worked alongside the Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit (Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service) to improve the experience of families that go through Fatal Accident Inquiries. In addition, Ruth is a member of the Bereaved Families for Online Safety (BFOS) group, that in collaboration with 5 Rights Foundation and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), campaigned to introduce effective ‘Online Harms’ legislation in the UK. She continues to campaign for greater online safety, particularly for children. She became an honorary council member of NSPCC, and in 2022, was awarded the Scotland’s Champions ‘Making a Difference Award’ and Pride of Scotland ‘Special Recognition Award' for this work. Ruth lives in Edinburgh with her family and is a keen hillwalker. She is currently on her second round of munros.

Barry Fitzsimmons

Trustee

Barry is currently Group Finance Director at Aggreko, the global leader in temporary power generation, which has revenues of around $3bn and operates in 80 countries worldwide. He has over 25 years’ experience in international finance and is member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) where he sits on the Policy Leadership Board, the body responsible for providing strategic direction, oversight and challenge to the policy work undertaken by ICAS. Read more

Barry is committed to trying to use his skillset to improve the lives of people in the local community and on a voluntary basis is Vice-Chairman and a Director of Strathleven Regeneration C.I.C, a vehicle established to support the regeneration of an area of Dumbarton impacted by the closure of the J&B Bottling plant which impacted some 470 people. The work of this company, which has senior level Board presence from both the public and private sector, has led to around £100m of investment, the creation of over 700 jobs and the building over 350 homes. Barry lives in Glasgow with his wife and three daughters and is a keen runner and footballer.

Dr Andrew Watson

Dr Andrew Watson is a Consultant in Rehabilitation Psychiatry and Associate Medical Director for Psychiatry in NHS Lothian.  He has a range of interests and experience across Mental Health and Illness including doing research on genetic brain imaging, being a member of the professional reference group for the Scottish Mental Health Law Reform and recently appointed to join the New Drugs Committee at the SMC where all new medicines are reviewed for use in Scotland. His day to day clinical practice is focused on working in partnership with third sector providers to support people with particularly significant difficulties.