ScotlandIS, the trade body for the digital technologies industry in Scotland, is pleased to announce that its chief executive, Polly Purvis, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Polly Purvis has been at the helm of ScotlandIS since 2004 and is Chair of CodeClan, the digital skills academy she and her team were instrumental in establishing in 2015. She has campaigned for many years to bring about action to tackle the digital skills shortage in Scotland and the gender gap in the industry.
She said: “I was surprised and delighted to be included on the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. The digital technologies sector in Scotland is flourishing and it is a pleasure to represent so many exciting businesses with enormous potential.
“There are countless opportunities in the digital economy – from fintech to smart cities technology – but Scotland needs to have the skills in place to capitalise on them. CodeClan may be a young organisation but its early success and the many students who have been snapped up by employers show the value of new approaches to skills education.”
Polly Purvis started her career with the Royal Bank of Scotland Group working in the City of London. She later held roles in the Scottish Development Agency and Scottish Enterprise before joining the Scottish Software Federation, and was actively engaged in the merger that formed ScotlandIS.
ScotlandIS represents 300 software, telecoms, IT and digital agency businesses in Scotland. Its remit is to raise the profile of the industry in Scotland, lobby policy makers on relevant issues and support its members in the development of business relationships with customers, suppliers and partner companies.
With more than 12,800 digital technologies job opportunities in Scotland per year, CodeClan aims to provide employers with access to a pool of top quality, locally trained digital talent by producing a continuous stream of developers following each intensive, immersive 16-week programming course.
Polly is a director of dotScot Registry and also represents ScotlandIS on the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership, the Digital Technologies Skills Group, the Industrial Advisory Board of the University of Dundee’s School of Computing, the Developing the Young Workforce National Advisory Board and the Digital Public Services Advisory Board.