Anne Iravani
Business Development Manager

Anne originally comes from Brighton, Sussex, and spent the first 20 years of her working life overseas in Switzerland, Bulgaria, Italy and Iran. Her experience during this time included working for the ILO (International Labour Organisation) in the Management Development Department in Geneva before being posted to a Mgt. Dev. Project in Sofia. She then spent some time in London, working for Jackson Wain (at that time Australia’s largest advertising agency) as a Media Assistant, developing promotional campaigns and liaising with the media.

In July 1970 she returned to the ILO to work at their International Professional and Vocational Training Centre in Turin, heading the Language Training Department. Following her marriage in 1976 she became the Turin Centre’s representative, based at the ILO office in Teheran, Iran, where she was responsible for the local administration of a US$7 million training contract between the Turin Centre and the Government of Iran. She also assisted the ILO Director in Teheran with a number of other ILO-funded development projects in Iran and Afghanistan.

Following the revolution in Iran in 1978 Anne spent 6 months with IMCO in London, working for the Human Resources Department before coming to Aberdeen, where she joined Occidental Petroleum, initially working as PA to the Vice President before being promoted to Manager of Admin Support, where she managed a team of 45 administrative staff, the introduction of new office technology and the department’s budget.

In 1986 Anne up her first business, Prowl Ltd., which I ran for 10 years and during this time she acted as the European Coordinator for West Ltd., a US oil and gas training consultancy and set up and ran the marketing office for PITB (Petroleum Industry Training Board) after it moved from Montrose to Aberdeen.

In 1993 she was contracted to the ad hoc team of market researchers at Scottish Enterprise Grampian and fully trained by Scottish Enterprise to conduct market research on behalf of SE Grampian clients, in compliance with the standards of the Market Research Society.

She also held another contract with Aberdeen Enterprise Trust as Training Manager, responsible for the design and delivery of business start-up and business development training courses before, two years later being promoted to the role of a Business Advisor, assisting clients across a wide range of industry sectors to identify and develop new commercial opportunities and to grow existing businesses.

Anne set up Business Plus Scotland (BPS) in 1997, to focus on business development consultancy and, market research. The company was incorporated in 2002 and in April 2008 became a division of Iravani Associates Ltd. Since 1997 BPS has delivered contracts across a wide range of industry sectors, both public and private, including providing marketing support for 6 years to a local giftware company.

In 2005 Anne became one of the founder members of the NeXt Generation Group established by Aberdeen City & Shire Economic Forum, whose remit was to look at ways the public and private sectors could work more closely together. The Group developed 4 key projects which are currently being taken forward, including the Energetica Project with which she was personally involved. (This project builds on Aberdeen’s current reputation as the Energy Capital of Europe and existing local expertise, and provides a strategy for embracing the potential of new, renewable forms of energy, thereby increasing its global capabilities and client base.)

Anne also led a private exploratory mission to north-east Estonia in 2005 to look at business opportunities for UK companies working in the field of cleaning contaminated land.

In the past 3 years Anne has:

• delivered market research projects (executive interviews/focus groups/telephone surveys) in such sectors as education, oil and gas, tourism and hospitality and IT;

• designed and project managed the Fyvie Homecoming Festival in 2009 (the largest 3-day Homecoming event in the North East of Scotland);

• organised several fund-raising events for local charities;

• been a guest lecturer at the School of Hospitality, Retail and Tourism at Robert Gordon University;

• delivered enterprise training in schools across Aberdeen city and shire and set a BPS Enterprise Challenge for the last 5 years at Fyvie Primary School

Anne has been a mentor for the Scottish Chambers of Commerce for 4 years.

She is an active member of ACSEF, SCDI, several networking groups in Aberdeen and her local tourism action group. She is also working with ACVO and another business associate to raise funds for a new small charity assisting grandparents who have had to assume the care of their grandchildren.

She is a Board Member of Turriff & District Limited and a member of Turriff & District Rotary Club. Her interests include travel, music, drama and reading.

As Business Development Manager Anne manages the ad hoc team of experienced market researchers, trained to Market Research Society standards, who are mainly mature people, drawn from a variety of backgrounds and industry sectors.

We pride ourselves on a team which is confidential and reliable, with good work ethics and sense of humour and a willingness to “go the extra” mile. Researchers are assigned to projects according to their background and experience. Below are details of some of the team.


Gerry Donnelly
Senior Researcher

Gerry comes from Dundee and holds a BA Honours degree in Commerce, specialising in Marketing, International Marketing and Industrial Relations, as well as a post-graduate diploma in Total Quality Management from Stirling University. Prior to working for BPS he has worked in senior marketing positions in a variety of industry sectors including Unwins Seeds, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, OMS Ltd., Halliburton, Tayside Police and the voluntary sector, as well as running his own IT company.


Dona Robbins
Senior Researcher

Dona is an experienced and valuable member of our team and comes originally from Dundee. After a period in retail and then running her own business she trained as a market researcher and has been employed by some of the UK’s major market research companies including H. I. Europe and Systems 3. She has excellent communication skills and a great telephone manner.


Bernie Allison
Researcher

Bernie is the newest member of the BPS team. She originally comes from Liverpool but has lived in the north east of Scotland since 1994. She holds a diploma in Health Information Sciences from Warwick University and has worked in the health sector as an information officer and project manager for more than 10 years. She also has considerable sales experience, gained through working for Body Shop and in addition to working for BPS she is a co-director of Angel Training Ltd, and an accomplished folk singer!