Mike P. Stevenson Managing Director Design Links Ltd. 89 Giles Street Edinburgh, NONE EH6 6BZ United Kingdom

Email:	mike@designlinks.co.uk
URL:	www.designlinks.co.uk
Type of Business:	Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations
Expertise:	Advertising and Marketing
Marketing Area:	National
Education/Degrees:	Kirkcaldy High School, Napier University, Glasgow Caledonian University. BA in communication studies. MBA
Affiliations:	Member of the Institute of Directors Chair of Youth Coach Scotland Member of the Council of St George's School for Girls Member of Scottish Business in the Community
Awards:	Winner of nine Communicators in Business Scotland Awards.
Favorite Publication:	The Director and Marketing Week
Hobbies/Personal   Interests:	A singer guitarist who used to perform professionally but now plays in the privacy of his own home. An occasional actor with a few walk on parts to his name. A voracious reader of great fiction and an aspiring novelist. Football and rugby remain personal passions.
Biography:	A marketing professional for more then twenty years Mike has worked with some of the leading brand names in the UK - Marks and Spencer, BHS, BskyB, Standard Life, AXA Insurance and Scottish and Southern Energy to name but a few. Design Links has been his passion since it was formed in 1994 and the agency has helped numerous clients clarify their vision and take radical approaches to marketing services and products. His life has been varied in the extreme. He left school aged 15 and by his 21st birthday had been a steelworker, wine bottler, hod-carrier, shortbread packer, hospital orderly and youth leader. This was followed by a career as a musician – from busking in Dublin to playing at the country’s leading festivals. Recently, walk on TV parts and a lead role in a short film means he retains tenuous links with stage and screen. He is regarded in the UK as a pioneer in engaging hard-to-reach communities. He was appointed advisor on marketing to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and recently chaired an international seminar in London on the subject. Mike is a passionate believer in the power of individuals to achieve far beyond their own, sometimes limited, expectations and he is fast establishing himself on the Scottish business circuit as an inspirational speaker (www.mikestevenson.net). In 2006 he formed Talking UP for a Change as a motivational arm of Design Links - in a determined campaign to raise Scottish confidence and give the nation is its own brand of chutzpah.

  
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