Jo Kennedy is the Director of the Craighead Institute.

Jo’s background includes community development and work with excluded groups. She has 18 years experience working as a trainer and consultant with statutory and voluntary organisations and for the past 10 years she has also been working with religious congregations.

She specialises in change management, strategic planning, evaluation, participation and leadership mentoring and is particularly interested in supporting teams to explore how they work, identify barriers and find their own ways of working more effectively to achieve their goals.

Jo is currently working on a major change programme in the community health sector in Scotland and is providing consultancy to several international religious congregations.

Jo is course director of the Diploma in Consultancy and Facilitation and one of the staff on the Leadership Development Programme in Rome.

Jo lives in Edinburgh and is married with three children.


Esther McClure is the Operational Manager of the Craighead Institute.

She manages the day to day running of the Institute office in Glasgow and is a consultant to other administrators. Esther has experience of administering many international projects and events and has been secretary to a general chapter of an international congregation based in London. She also provides graphic facilitation to groups and organisations and has been a staff member on Faith-Filled Leadership and Membership programmes in Ireland and Croatia.

Professional Associates
The Institute draws on a group of Professional Associates who have completed the Diploma in Organisational Consultancy and Facilitation or the Integrating Life and Faith Programme and demonstrate a commitment to our mission and purpose.

Individual Professional Associates are matched carefully to potential clients. We assess a Professional Associates skills and knowledge against the needs of each client. During the contracting process, the potential client will be sent a profile of the recommended Professional Associate.

Christine Anderson FCJ currently lives in Rome and is an independent consultant in Faith and Praxis, drawing on her worldwide experience of working with international organisations including the Jesuit Refugee Service. Christine is consultant to many international congregations and has twenty years experience in this field. Christine is a Fellow of the Institute of Business Consulting and she is the founder of the Craighead Institute.

Alice Codling Course Director of the Integration of Life and Faith Programme in Edinburgh. She is trained in Pastoral Ministry and Adult Faith Formation.

John Harvey is a retired Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) minister. A member of the ecumenical Iona Community, he was Warden of Iona Abbey in the 1970's, and Leader of the Community from 1988 - 1995. From 1995 - 2000 he was a full-time member of the staff team of the Craighead Institute. He is married, with four children and six grandchildren.

Siobhán Jordan is the Director of Interface, an organisation which supports businesses to access the knowledge base of Scottish Universities and Research Institutes. She is also an associate consultant for the Craighead Institute facilitating the Integrating Life and Faith programme in Edinburgh. In addition she is actively involved in supporting local community groups.

Anne Macdonald is Course Director of the Integrating Life and Faith Programme based in Glasgow. She is also the Institute Archivist and is currently working on updating Institute materials.

Alan McKell is Course Director of Integrating Life and Faith Programme with a special remit of working in Southern and Eastern Europe. He has also staffed the Faith Filled Leadership programme in Croatia.


Ian McKenzie has over 20 years experience of the voluntary/community sector, principally in organisational, partnership and community development. He specialises in building the capacity of community based projects and initiatives, enabling cross-sectoral partnership, participatory approaches to action research and evaluation, and facilitating the management of change. He has worked extensively with churches and faith communities as they have sought to respond and adapt to the demands of constant change and uncertainty. His qualifications include an MSc in Development Management and a Certificate in Community Education.

Patricia Orr is currently consulting to various groups and organisations from several countries of Europe and Africa. Her background is in education and teacher training. She is fluent in French and Spanish and enjoys work of facilitating Religious Congregations.

Pauline Petrie is Course Director of the Integrating Life and Faith Programme and is currently doing PhD research into the methodology of the Craighead Institute.

Joette Thomas is a consultant who has worked in human services since 1990; nearly 10 years of which were spent at Chief Officer level in the voluntary sector. Her current work includes training, executive coaching, and a range of supports for organisational review and development. Joette has a particular interest in the area of leadership; she strives to inspire and strengthen the people and organisations with whom she works.

Duncan Wallace is a highly skilled and experienced facilitator, passionate about the importance of high quality, needs led management of voluntary organisations. He is currently working as a freelance consultant doing facilitation work, mentoring, training and evaluations.

Craighead Institute Council Members
Brett Nicholls is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Surveyor (Urban Valuation). He qualified as a Chartered Accountant after training with Coopers and Lybrand (now Price Waterhouse Coopers) in New Zealand. He specialised within Corporate Recovery work and was involved in receiverships, intensive care and investigative work on behalf of banks and other clients.

Brett has been living in Scotland for 20 years and over 15 years ago he moved into economic regeneration work and was Finance Director for Govan Initiative Ltd for a number of years. Over the last five years he has been involved in consultancy work mainly within the charitable and regeneration sector. He specialises in Business Plans, financial investigations and Due Diligence, Financial Projections and modelling, Project Evaluations on behalf of funders, Funding Applications, setting up of computer-based accounting systems and training and support in the above areas.