Student LaunchPad 2023 - Mentor profiles

Mentor profiles 

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Jayne Dutch - Head of Employee Experience - Macphie
Recruiter

Jayne joined Macphie in 2020 as customer service team leader before taking on the role of head of employee experience. Working with her team of experienced HR professionals, Jayne is responsible for enhancing the employee experience of all Macphie’s people – from recruitment to retirement – helping to attract talent, develop careers and make Macphie a great place to work.

Prior to joining Macphie, Jayne worked in banking and finance, ranging from corporate relationship management, risk compliance and business management.

Victoria Goodyear - Employee Experience Advisor - Macphie
Recruiter

Victoria joined Macphie in 2022 from Police Scotland where she worked in the control room and as custody sergeant. Prior to this, Victoria worked in the oil & gas industry and retail, leading large shop-floor teams. 

Victoria now puts her experience of working with people and working in high-pressure environments to good practise in her role as employee experience advisor, supporting everything from recruitment and talent management to dealing with grievances and chairing employee forums.

Paul McKnight - Open Innovation Manager - Macphie
Mentor

Having studied food science and consumer product management at Robert Gordon University, Paul’s love of food grew as he worked as a chef throughout his studies. From here, he joined Macintosh of Dyce working on the development of ready meals, pies and sausages before moving to Fisher Foods which is now part of Young’s. He then returned to the world of ready meals, working for SMARTT, before joining food ingredients manufacturer Macphie in 2003.

Paul was initially employed as a development technologist, working on customised briefs for Macphie’s customer base before moving to the branded department working on NPD, raw materials and packaging. He is now in the role of open innovation manager, covering NPD, developments in packaging and ingredients as well as investigating forward technologies and processes for the business.
 

Kate Richardson - Head of Quality - Macphie
Experienced Food Professional

Kate joined food ingredients manufacturer Macphie two years ago in 2021 as head of quality, leading a team of 15 people across quality control and quality systems.

Kate has over 26 years’ experience in the food industry. Her career has seen her progress from quality controller to auditor, quality control supervisor, quality systems manager and quality manager across a variety of sectors including fresh produce, high-care dips and dressings as well as retailers, seafood and free-from bakers.

It wasn’t until she undertook her first role as quality manager at the age of 28 that Kate embarked on a university degree, studying food science and manufacturing by distance learning. 

George Black
Product Design Manager

George joined Macphie in 2022, bringing with him over 20 years of food industry experience. He started his career with Scotbeef as product development technologist, working on added-value raw beef, lamb and pork products for Marks & Spencer and Co-op. From here he moved to McCormick Europe or a number of years, developing products for brands including McDonalds, Nando’s and KFC.

He later went on to work for gluten-free bakery brand Genius before taking on further senior roles in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

George now heads up Macphie’s team of product technologists, covering a broad portfolio of UHT, ready-to-eat and powder products.