Advisory panel

Andy McNab DCM MM

Advisor on Services to Disadvantaged Youths

Despite an illustrious career in the army, Andy McNab had a less than privileged start to life.  Born on 28 December 1959, he was found abandoned on the steps of guy’s hospitals in Southwark and spent his early childhood in Peckham raised by his adoptive family. He did not engage or perform well in school and instead focused his energy doing odd jobs, usually for friends and relatives.

During his teenage years, Andy was involved in petty criminality until being arrested and taken into juvenile detention for burglary at the age of 16. Shortly after this, he was offered the opportunity of leaving juvenile detention early if he signed up for the army. He hoped to become a helicopter pilot but upon discovering that he had the reading age of an 11 year old, he was sent to the royal green jackets, an infantry regiment. He served in the British army for eighteen years, spending eight of those as an infantry soldier and ten years in 22 special air service, where he was awarded the distinguished conduct medal and military medal. He has written about his experiences in the SAS in three bestselling books, bravo two zero (1993), immediate action (1995) and seven troop (2008) and has written 15 thrillers and a number of other fiction and non-fiction titles for both adults and children.

Andy is a patron of help for heroes and regularly visits British forces in Afghanistan and bases in the UK. He is pleased to be part of esg’s advisory panel and hopes to give something back through offering his advice to help those who have experienced a similar disadvantaged start to life, inspiring them to overcome hardship and become a success.    

Dr Ali Hassan Al Fageeh

Advisor for Middle-Eastern Affairs

Dr Ali Al Fageeh is a highly qualified Psychologist with a broad variety of skills and experience relating to employment, education, and labour market issues. His career has seen him hold such positions as the Senior Consulting Psychologist for the Bahrain National Employment project, where he designed and developed psychometric assessment processes to ensure the appropriate placement of 14,000 registered jobseekers. Dr Al Fageeh has also spent the last few years as a principal consultant with the Abu Dhabi Government’s TAWTEEN Council, where he was responsible for the strategy and development of their career advising process, jobseeker training and placement services. He also managed the Regional Employment Initiative for the Western Region of Abu Dhabi.

As part of the panel, Dr Al Fageeh will be an integral part of our solution design and development team and provide a middle-eastern perspective on the operational delivery of our programmes.

Major General David Shaw CBE

Advisor on esg Services for Ex-Service Personnel

Major General David Shaw CBE was, until this year, a British Army officer commanding all aspects of the Army in northern UK.

Brought up in Sri Lanka, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1976 and went on to take part in training and operations around the world including the Falkland Islands, Cyprus, Kenya, Hong Kong, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. He was appointed Brigadier Commander in the North East and Yorkshire in 2002, Chief of Staff Regional Forces in 2004 and Director of Army Media and Communication in 2007. He took up the post of General Officer Commanding 2nd Division and Governor of Edinburgh Castle in 2009.

Experienced in leading large multi-functional organisations, David Shaw has overseen functions including operations, finance, infrastructure, communication, welfare, administration, HR and recruitment. His specialisms are media and communication, leadership, change management and operations. He is a visiting Professor at The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.

David Shaw brings his wealth of experience in dealing with the Army to esg. He will help us develop innovative ideas and holistic solutions, in particular for the specific needs of people coming onto our programmes from the Armed Forces.

Margaret Adams

Advisor on Offender Management and Related Services

Margaret Adams has spent her career dedicated to bringing innovation and solution design to the criminal justice system. She began her involvement with the probation service in 1985 when she worked for both the Merseyside and Thames Valley areas, during which time she also practised as an accredited Family Mediator throughout Northamptonshire. In the year 2000 Margaret received a national Butler Trust Award for her work in developing HMP Woodhill’s Voluntary Testing Unit, which was closely followed by a career move in 2001 when she became Prison Governor in the high security estate as Head of the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) and Protected Witness Units. A further Butler Trust Award came two years later for ‘extraordinary work done extraordinarily well’ by Margaret and her team, which involved pioneering individualised case management of the most difficult, dangerous and disruptive prisoners in the system.
 
Between 2004 and 2007 Margaret was Programme Director of the NOMS Pathfinder, working with the Prime Minister’s strategy unit to test early implementation of the new Offender Management Model in both probation and prison services. After two years as Regional Head of Public Protection and Reducing Reoffending for North West Prisons, she joined NOMS Public Sector Bids Unit in 2009 as Strategic Adviser for Offender Management, Prison Regimes and Stakeholder Partnerships.
 
Margaret is now providing expert consultancy to a wide range of organisations interfacing with criminal justice issues, and is delighted to be helping to  inform esg. on our solution design for Offender Learning and Skills Services and other offender-related customer journey models.