Testimonials

“I had the pleasure of working closely with Aileen on a pivotal EU Citizens Support project for Citizens Advice Scotland. Under Aileen’s wing, I created a Social Media Campaign Strategy, Social Media Policy and Social Media Training materials for the organisation. With over 30 years’ Marketing experience under her belt, working with Aileen was a real masterclass. Within minutes of working with Aileen it was clear to me that she LOVES what she does, and she is BRILLIANT at it too. I would work with Aileen again in a heartbeat. I highly recommend Aileen to any organisation looking for Director level Marketing support.”

Dane Thomson

Social Media Specialist
Streets Ahead Social

“Aileen worked with us from January 2019 and was a first-class addition to our team. She brought a vibrancy and a well-defined set of skills to CAS during her time and was an absolute pleasure to work with. Her marketing skills, knowledge and experience were of huge benefit to my team and she left our organisation with all of our best wishes. I would have no hesitation in recommending Aileen to any organisation looking for someone with her skill set.”

Derek Mitchell

CEO
Citizens’ Advice Scotland

“Aileen was a welcome addition to our team from Jan to April 2019 taking a lead in establishing updates required to Brexit readiness digital content and developing a marketing strategy for our upcoming EU Citizens Support Service. Aileen successfully liaised with multiple teams within and outwith CAS to achieve these objectives. Her forward thinking to ensure marketing developed for EU Citizens Support had a wider impact beyond the immediate task at hand resulted in laying foundations for future marketing endeavours.”

Aaliya Seyal

Director of Customer Journey
Citizens’ Advice Scotland

“Aileen worked across stakeholder groups in setting an aspirational tone starting at the top, working with the Senior Leadership and Elected Members.

“A quick, out-of-the-gate approach into a series of interviews, assessments and big picture thinking from Aileen allowed for early engagement across key stakeholders (including comms, graphics, and digital colleagues). It also led to faster ways of unlocking stakeholders’ ideas.

“Aileen drew on her depth and breadth of experience in Marketing & Communications to deliver a thorough and in-depth piece of research and a set of strategic goals that will help us to future proof the Council.

“Her insights work, and analysis was instrumental in helping us to understand the messaging around the need to develop a transformation story to create lasting connection to the change we want to see.

“Aileen gave us a final comprehensive and costed Brand, Marketing and Communications Strategy and phased approach that means we will be realistic and very specific in how we can truly transform our Council communications and marketing strategy for the benefit of all our staff, residents, small businesses, and communities in this part of Scotland.

“If you have similar challenges to ours, then I would have no hesitation in recommending Aileen Caskie to you in support of achieving your communication and marketing vision through not only your workforce but your organisation as a whole.”

Michael Shepley MSc BSc (Hons) Chartered MCIPD

Head of People and Transformation
Dumfries & Galloway Council

“Aileen slotted in really quickly and professionally when she worked with us from January – May 2007. We have a small, but committed and dynamic team and while she was at YouthNet she worked on 2 of our key online services for young people – The Site.org, delivering high-quality information, signposting & frontline emotional support and Do-it.org.uk, all about volunteering. She managed and co-ordinated the following: online marketing; branding; communications; events; CRM & literature – to reach target audiences, generate income and traffic, and raise the profile of the charity’s achievements and services. Aileen is an achievement-orientated, hard-working, experienced professional with a sense of humour.”

Fiona Dawe

CBE, CEO, Youthnet

“Aileen joined SSE at a time of significant and rapid change. There was an immediate requirement to build a brand at pace to reflect the refocusing of the Group as a developer, operator and owner of low-carbon infrastructure. While a new SSE Group brand strategy had been formulated by a working party over the course of some months prior to her arrival, much needed to be done in completing the brand development and creating brand guidelines from scratch. Aileen was quick to establish herself and her credentials as a brand professional among key stakeholders across a complex operating model. Her tenacity resulted in the delivery of a robust brand system, a detailed set of brand guidelines and a near-ready brand management system that was the product of thorough research and internal due diligence. In summary, Aileen was able – over the course of a very tight timeframe – to deliver a lot of brand work that will stand SSE in good stead as it plays its part in the fight against climate change.”

Sean Munday

Head of Group Communications and Reporting

“Aileen contacted me at the start of 2020 as she was conducting research and due diligence into martech vendors with a UK presence. The list of requirements was extensive, with an overarching aim that the selected vendor could facilitate and sustain SSE plc’s (a FTSE 100 Energy company) urgent rebranding and repositioning. It was apparent from my first conversation with Aileen, that she was a consummate marketing professional, so it came as no surprise to learn she was a Chartered Marketer and a Fellow of the CIM.

“Aileen walked me through the key drivers for the SaaS-solution for online brand management and DAM, whilst clearly demonstrating an enormous knowledge of SSE and current challenges in the energy sector. She very succinctly espoused the new vision, mission and values, outlining how critical they were to secure long-term sustainable growth for the SSE brand. Over the coming weeks and months, despite the challenges of a truncated timeline, managing competing stakeholder requirements, Aileen’s competence and flair ensured an enjoyable journey. Everyone’s resolve was tested again as the Covid-19 pandemic hit and that seemed to underline the acute need for a remote, online brand management solution. Aileen delivers and ensures the job gets done. When you have a project like this one, with complexity, different stakeholder groups and many moving parts, this can be very reassuring indeed.”

Paul Glynn MCIM

Managing Director, UK & Ireland, Brandmaster

“Aileen has made a real difference to the way we approach our communications and engagement. She has professionalised our contacts with our many and varied customers; creating a customer centric approach supported by training and toolkits and, crucially, has transformed our internal communications resulting in more engaged and informed staff. She delivered on her key objective – not only creating the communications and engagement strategy but leaving us enthusiastic and capable of continuing to deliver and develop on her approach.”

Anne Moises, Chief Information Officer, Scottish Government

“Aileen has assisted us with clearing the landscape on our previous myriad of communication methods and taking us to a point where concise and repeatable communications methods can be applied across our division. Quite often external resources struggle to understand the complexities and inter-relationships within Government, however Aileen quickly established herself as a credible subject matter expert who could establish multi-tier relationships. There is no doubt that this was a demanding and time constrained engagement but Aileen was able to drive through change and get us to a better place with clear and reusable outputs.”

Andy McClintock, Chief Technology Officer, Scottish Government

“Aileen has delivered a very high-quality piece of work for Information Services & Information Systems. She’s worked well with a wide variety of stakeholders over the past 10 months to conduct our people survey, help change behaviours and approaches, develop new protocols and products, and leave us with the tools in place to support all of this in the future. This was a challenging project, requiring time and input from many people with competing priorities, against a constantly changing landscape. Aileen has shown a great deal of professionalism, drive and determination to deliver this work in the time available and I’m delighted with what she’s achieved.”

Dave Watson, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Scottish Government

“Aileen came into our business area and shook us out of our torpor. She shone a hard light on our communication shortcomings and dragged our attitudes and approach to business communication into the 21st century. Aileen reinforced that negative reaction from the business was to be welcomed rather than shied away from and delivered real change in ethos, approach and output to a number of key communication protocols. She was tireless and a hugely positive force for the time she was in the organisation. I hope our professional paths cross again.”

Graham Mitchell, Head of IT Support Services, Scottish Government

“Aileen joined ISIS to provide guidance and develop processes for our technical teams for input into the wider divisional communication strategy (or lack of) for our customers and stakeholders. As with many organisations the technical teams were from different specialisms and subsequently spoke in different technical geek speak. Although from a non-technical background, Aileen quickly gained the credibility of these teams, with her ability to digest and translate. As a result of her work with people from across the division, Aileen was then able to create and deliver clear and concise training courses for the technical teams for the delivery of the new customer-centric Communication Strategy.”

“Aileen also took our muddled explanations of what all 10 branches across ISIS delivered and translated them into clear and concise customer-friendly service propositions so our customers now have a much better idea of what we can and can’t do for them – ISIS on a page. Aileen was a refreshing addition to our organisation who made us all think out of the box and take different approaches to areas out with our comfort zones. I hope our professional paths cross again.”

Graeme Lockhart, Head of Systems Management, Scottish Government

 “Aileen on arrival immediately immersed herself in the business of the Scottish Government ICT service division. As specialists in a number of ICT disciplines with complex stakeholder groups, communication was challenging and as a result often inconsistent and unclear. During her time we had a number of high dependency projects and her contribution to our communications strategy, planning and delivery was professional, highly effective and productive. She left a legacy of motivated comms champions across the Division and a sustainable foundation for the future. Her tenacious approach and vivacious personality made her a lively and memorable colleague.”

Maxine Reid, Head of Knowledge and Information Management, Scottish Government

“Aileen was engaged by a large local authority to supply communications expertise during the transition period of a strategic partnership contract for the provision of IT and telecoms services. The transition project was a largely lift and shift exercise, undertaken in a very short period of time, with eleven different service lines to identify and subsequently migrate in-house. This was not a straightforward undertaking with the contract being terminated early and a large number of staff being transferred back into the local authority under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE Regs).

“The primary communications challenge was to initially deliver a difficult message about the on-going level of service during transition to service users all of whom had differing requirements and levels of technical understanding. There was then an ongoing requirement to dispel any unrealistic expectations around the instant re-engineering and improvement of IT service post transition. A secondary challenge was to engage with staff being transferred and those already in the authority who were part of the contract management team. The requirement was to unite these groups and breakdown entrenched and residual hostility resulting from the previous commercial relationship between the parent entities and subsequent contract termination.

“Aileen’s response to these twin demands was very effective. Within three weeks of engagement she had created a clear proactive communications strategy, which she implemented effectively, efficiently and professionally. Aileen created a joint employee engagement programme to break down the barriers and mistrust within the two teams. Her events were highly successful and were crucial in creating a unified culture under challenging circumstances.

“I would recommend Aileen to anyone in need of a strong communications professional for a project with a challenging timescale and a difficult message.”

Bill Hall, Project Director

“Aileen provided us with marketing consultancy just at the right time. We were looking to launch a new Healthcare IT application and needed a strategy and a plan so that we could work efficiently with the sales team. As budget was limited, we had to get maximum benefit out of Aileen’s time. She collaborated with us effectively and quickly and produced an incisive and impressive marketing brief and strategy in a very short space of time. This was developed into a plan that was then actioned by the sales team across the UK. As a small IT company with a limited budget it was essential that consultants could understand technology, understand the business, and quickly become effective, and Aileen definitely did that for us.”
Marianne Campbell, Product Manager, Hospedia

”As soon as I met Aileen, I knew we were going to work well together. Not a simple context to manage for her, a UK start-up, and part of an international organisation: plenty to do and plenty of co-ordination necessary with corporate headquarters in France. It was a key advantage that Aileen spoke excellent French, not that common amongst English-speaking natives, that made her mission with us a success. I’m ready to work with Aileen again.”

Jean-Marc Duquenoy, International Product Marketing, HR Access Solution

“She delivered on so many levels, as an expert practitioner with all her years of PR and Marketing experience, yet she avoided being jargonistic, instead offering straight forward suggestions and plans that we can now fully implement. She consulted with us, regularly checking we were on the same page and that she was grasping our core business and direction. She identified the areas we needed to address in order to move the strategy along and provided clear guidance on how to do this.

“Aileen also offered us ideas and opinions, which we found very useful indeed. To have such a clear thinker on your team, who delivers exactly what she says she will, is both satisfying and sadly a little unusual these days. Aileen is undoubtedly one of the top consultants in her field and I would not hesitate to use her again in the future or to recommend her to you.”

Paul Nicolson, Business Development Manager, Outsphere UK & Ireland

“Aileen’s strong communication skills allowed her to create our new value propositions supported by key messaging, designed to kick-start our brand transformation. Aileen’s diligent research and insight gathering provided great depth to our client voices. The creation of new personas that aligned with our buying processes was extremely helpful in developing our differentiated competitive advantage.

“Aileen also developed a creative and comprehensive brief for a new corporate identity system, new website development and platinum prospect plus cross-sales campaigns. It has been an absolute pleasure working with her; she was always pushing the boundaries to help realign our strategy with our long-term vision. Her open and honest professionalism would be a fantastic asset for any team!”

Allie Turner, Campaign Coordinator, Rubric

“Aileen is an accomplished strategic marketer who worked with us on our brand and marketing strategy. She ran a great series of workshops with senior management to help us develop our company vision, mission, and value proposition. I found the sessions really engaging and they helped us to uncover important insights, which are now guiding our marketing strategy. As part of the process Aileen interviewed many of our customers and developed a deep understanding of Rubric and the localization industry – no mean feat in a very specialised technical domain. Aileen was able to bring together her key findings into a brief for agencies, with a view to implementing a brand refresh and new website.”

Dominic Spurling, IT Director, Rubric

“As director of the department, her leadership was firm yet fair, and her approach was always open, honest and direct. Ultimately, Aileen is an extremely hardworking marketing professional, but she also possesses the qualities of integrity and empathy to listen and understand the challenges that face her team to develop supportive solutions to achieve goals and deadlines. I would welcome the opportunity to work with her again.”

“Aileen also offered us ideas and opinions, which we found very useful indeed. To have such a clear thinker on your team, who delivers exactly what she says she will, is both satisfying and sadly a little unusual these days. Aileen is undoubtedly one of the top consultants in her field and I would not hesitate to use her again in the future or to recommend her to you.”

Aoife O’Sullivan, Communications and PR Manager