James Withers
Owner, JR Withers Advisory Ltd
James Withers is a much sought after Consultant after stepping down in the summer of 2022 as the Chief Executive of Scotland Food & Drink (SF&D) after 11 years in post. SF&D was set up in 2007 to grow the value and reputation of Scotland’s food and drink industry. Through its uniquely collaborative approach, Scotland’s food and drink sector has gone from a static position in 2007 to now being one of Scotland’s best performing sectors with an annual turnover of £16 billion.
In March 2017, SF&D led the development of Ambition 2030 – a strategy to drive the responsible growth in the value of the sector to £30 billion by 2030. Alongside this, James worked with STA to launch Scotland’s first food tourism strategy.
Prior to joining the SF&D in 2011, James was CEO of the National Farmers Union Scotland. James sits on the Scottish Government’s Board of Trade and is a Board member of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, working to enhance Scotland’s world class tourism offer. In Autumn 2022, he was appointed by Scottish Ministers to lead an independent review of Scotland’s £3.5 billion skills delivery system. He is expected to report in Spring/Summer 2023.