Debbie Shields

Debbie Shields

Director

As Director, Debbie heads up the Interim and Third Sector divisions of Aspen’s business. She is a highly experienced recruiter with more than ten years experience covering a wide variety of sectors.

For the majority of her career, Debbie has worked with Senior Leadership Teams on key appointments in the Executive and Non Executive space across a broad spectrum of Public, Private and Third Sector organisations. Although she has predominantly worked in Scotland, she has additional experience of working in London.

Debbie has a personal interest in the Third Sector and has been involved in a number of Charities as a Trustee herself.  She is currently a Non Executive Director of the Scottish Refugee Council and former Chair of SAY Women, Former President of Scottish Women in Business and a previous Trustee of the Judy Murray Foundation amongst others.

Debbie is interested in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and how we can achieve this across the sector and in Boards in a meaningful way.  As such Debbie is involved in a number of different groups who promote diversity and incusion and is always keen to chat about the subject.

The Chamber sought Debbie’s support for the recruitment of an interim Regional Executive Director role as we required some extra help to find the right individual after some initial open advertising. Her insights were invaluable both in terms of how we were expressing what we wanted job description wise but also suggestions of how the market was currently behaving and candidate expectations. She sourced several excellent potential candidates for us to interview and we have been absolutely delighted with the candidate we appointed. She cuts right to the chase and sees and understands the needs of both the recruiting company and the candidates as equal in importance which I believe is essential to get the right fit. I would highly recommend working with Debbie and have since passed on a number of candidates to her for advice and as potential future clients.

Alison McRae – Network & Partnerships Entrepreneur, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce

I’ve known Debbie in a professional capacity for some time now and have no hesitation in recommending her and her team for the professional range of services she delivers. Debbie’s personal style makes her engaging and adds immense value to the relationships that are so key in the professional appointments field. I’ve worked directly with Debbie to secure my current appointment and can assuredly say with no fear of contradiction, how perfectly she matched the requirements she was tasks with from both my perspective and that off the other party. Should you need a highly connected headhunter or senior professionals recruiter, you could do no better than to work with Debbie and her team.

Karen Morrill – Candidate

Debbie recently assisted us in the recruitment of two high profile senior roles at Scottish Canals. Debbie has a great up to date knowledge of the Executive market in Scotland across a wide range of sectors which was an enormous benefit during our recruitment process. Debbie led and managed the recruitment process professionally from beginning to end, selecting some of the best candidates at that level in Scotland for our consideration. Debbie is highly experienced and knowledgeable in her field, a highly effective and diligent professional that I would have no hesitation in reaching out to for recruitment support in the future.

Denise Miller – Head of People, Scottish Canals