People
Trustees
The SWAN Board of Trustees is responsible for ensuring that the Charity is well-managed in line with our vision, mission and values, maintains a clear focus on our strategic objectives, and abides by its charitable objectives.
As an Autistic-led Charity, it's written in our governing document that the majority of SWAN Trustees must be autistic - something we're very proud of.
We’re just as proud of the (minority) neurotypical Trustees who form part of our Board - for neurodiversity in our thinking, a range of skills, and as valued allies.
Gail Mohamed
Chair
(she/her)
Gail is a Chartered Accountant with an international career in financial services, economic development and renewable energy. She is a champion for her employer’s charity Foundation and Co-chaired the creation of its first Neurodiversity employee network group.
She is an enthusiastic pencil artist, knitter, baker and cook, with interests in the maths and physics of climate, weather, geology, music and human geometry.
She is proud to be a Trustee of SWAN and, as a late diagnosed autistic woman, is honoured to play a part in SWAN’s autistic led support of existing and future generations of autistic people in Scotland.
Alison Ritchie
Treasurer
(she/they)
Alison is Head of Operations at Friends of the Earth Scotland, where her role focuses on finance and HR. Despite her focus on the 'boring bits', she's delighted to be working for an organisation dedicated to climate justice. Prior to this she spent many years working in hospitality in operational management, including spells in France and Switzerland.
Outside of work she spends most of my time walking the dog, taking advantage of the beautiful Scottish scenery, and slowly bagging Munros.
There was very little suitable support available when she received her diagnosis, so she's very glad that SWAN now exists and proud to be part of the board. She admires SWAN's work both supporting autistic women and non-binary people, and providing education and training for professionals from an autistic perspective.
Sharon McMeekin
(she/her)
Sharon is Head of Workforce Development with the Digital Preservation Coalition where she leads on training and professional development projects for an international audience. Sharon is a qualified archivist and a frequent guest lecturer for information management courses at Universities in the UK and abroad. She was previously a trustee of the Scottish Council on Archives.
In her own time, Sharon is a skills magpie, loving to learn new things, as well as frequently adding to her increasingly out of control Lego collection. She also spends time with her dogs, Crouton and Pretzel, and her tortoise, Ted.
After receiving her Autism diagnosis at 44, Sharon found the SWAN post-diagnosis group to be incredibly helpful, and she hopes to help support the organisation so they can continue to aid others.
Rachel Birch
Trustee
(she/they)
Rachel’s first contact with SWAN was 7 years ago when she joined our online peer support group and attended the Glasgow in person meet ups looking for support as an autistic woman. SWAN’s support had a such a positive impact on her life that she decided to begin volunteering with us by delivering training/presentations, setting up the Aberdeen SWAN group, facilitating a number of in person meet ups across Scotland, and finally joining the board of trustees.
Rachel is also an autism professional, having held a wide range of roles with leading local and national autism and mental health organisations. Roles Rachel has held with other organisations include: support worker, trainer, co-researcher, trustee, services manager, director, and consultant.
In her spare time, Rachel can often be found falling regularly in skateparks whilst still trying to master FS kickturns on transitions, or in the hills snowboarding with her wife in winter.
Alison Duffy
Trustee
(she/her)
Alison has over 30 years’ experience working in the private sector in a variety of senior management roles gaining expertise in a number of disciplines from Product and Portfolio Management to Data Management in global technology industries. Leading strategic change programmes has been the common thread through her working life.
She enjoys walking and cycling, a walk along a big empty beach with her dog or a cycle along the Tay with her daughter = happiness
Of all her roles at work, being a team leader has been her favourite - supporting and seeing people develop to their full potential; and because of this, Alison is delighted to be a trustee at SWAN, to in some way play a part in enabling autistic women, girls and non-binary people to realise their potential in their personal and working lives.
Tanya Milligan
Trustee
(she/her)
Tanya is a professional librarian working part time in public libraries as a Project Lead – obtaining funding, creating and managing projects, as well as working on social media and marketing. She also works for a charity as an Associate Trainer, training employers on how to be autism friendly. Tanya has two autistic children and recently received her own autism diagnosis at the age of 49.
Tanya loves knitting, reading and cuddling with her two dogs
When Tanya’s eldest child was diagnosed, she found SWAN very helpful. When she began to wonder if she might be autistic Tanya found a great deal of support through SWAN webinars. SWAN has supported Tanya all the way through her autism journey and she is keen to give something back by being a Trustee.
Dora Moldovan
Trustee
(she/her)
Dora has over a decade of experience in managerial roles across several industries. Her professional interests lie in analytics and insight generation with the aim to better the lives of all living beings. She is interested in understanding the world and how it shapes us and how we can shape it.
She enjoys being (barefoot) in nature and has a drive to continuously try new things. Dora is a huge fan of Japan and enjoys cooking traditional Japanese dishes, incorporating the Japanese way of living into her life, and learning to read, write and speak the language.
Dora is proud to support the work of SWAN as a Trustee and is looking forward to a Scotland where autistic girls, women and non-binary people are heard and treated fairly.
Dr Sabina Strachan
Trustee
(she/her)
Sabina is the founder of how2glu ltd. which supports collaboration between individuals and organisations through consulting, training, facilitation, organisational development, bespoke resources and digital tools. She champions diversity as an essential, not optional, part of effective collaboration and is an experienced board member and charity advisor.
Sabina is into interior design and loves a bit of colour, is an avid follower of a few foreign-language dramas, and (when she remembers!) takes a sketchbook on holiday.
Sabina is grateful to be a SWAN ally and support the great work SWAN does.
Staff
As an autistic-led Charity all of SWAN’s staff are autistic, bringing their lived experience to their roles, in addition to their professional knowledge and skills.
Lyndsay Macadam
CEO
(they/she)
Lyndsay has over 18 years’ experience in community and voluntary sector development, support and representation and, more recently, in senior management and leadership in equalities organisations. They are committed to reducing inequalities, improving wellbeing, challenging stigma, and the importance of identity-led working.
They love living in the middle of nowhere, hanging out with a growing gang of chickens and cats, and sharing their ridiculously wild woodland garden with the resident red squirrels, badgers, hares and pine martens.
"My role is to lead the development of SWAN’s work, raising our profile and maximising our reach. I oversee SWAN’s operational and financial development and translate our strategy into action, manage our incredible staff team and work closely with our Trustees. Key to my role is ensuring that we listen to and involve the autistic women, girls and non-binary people who come to SWAN, and their feedback has a meaningful impact on the organisation.
I am proud to be the CEO of the only Charity run by and for autistic women, girls and non-binary people in Scotland."
Becky Choat
Projects Lead
(she/her)
My role at SWAN is split between two main areas of work. Within my role I am so privileged to work directly with autistic women, girls and non-binary people, supporting them to develop their own understanding and confidence in their autistic identity, improve wellbeing and reduce isolation through connection and community. This is offered through groups, webinars, resources and 1-1 sessions.
Alongside this I lead on SWAN’s bespoke training and consultancy work. Informed by the lived experience of our SWAN community, this work is aimed at raising understanding, dispelling myths and improving service provision and opportunities for autistic individuals.
Mandy Williams
Volunteer Coordinator
(they/she)
My role at SWAN is to recruit, train and support a team of amazing volunteers who are integral to the work we do at SWAN. Our volunteers, who are all autistic, play many key roles including facilitating Meet Ups across Scotland and providing digital support.
My main goal is to make sure every volunteer has everything they need to both enjoy and get the most out of their volunteering experience, whilst providing opportunities to develop and learn new skills for future volunteer roles and employment.