Our People

Jenny Paterson – CEO

Jenny brings a wealth of experience gathered across a long and varied career spanning more than 25 years, forged in Scotland’s charity sector. A strong advocate for disability rights, equality and social justice, she has worked in senior leadership and executive roles in some of the UK and Scotland’s best known charities.  Jenny spent over 11 years with social care charity Carr Gomm and was previously the director of the National Autistic Society Scotland. Jenny joins Venture Trust from her role as director of services and development with Victim Support Scotland, where she had been since 2021.

A keen wild swimmer, Jenny qualified as an open water swimming coach in 2021.  During the pandemic, she started an open water swimming community for women called Wild Wimmin Swimmin, that has grown to almost 4000 members.

Connect with Jenny on LinkedIn

Lynn Simmers – Director of Corporate Services

Lynn brings experience and knowledge gained from a wide variety of manufacturing, service, and retail businesses, including start-ups and large corporates, and latterly in the third sector, where she was Director of Finance at CentreStage in Kilmarnock. With significant exposure to re-structuring and change environments, she has a proven track record in systems implementation and process improvement. She is a valued and supportive business partner with strong analytical and communication skills.  Lynn lives near Loch Lomond and loves being outdoors, either working in her garden or on long dog walks with her spaniel Alfie.

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Denny Ford – Director of Operations

Denny joined Venture Trust in January 2025 having previously worked for children’s charity Who Cares? Scotland for 18 years, where he was the director of their operational work, which included all advocacy, participation, volunteering and large scale national events. He also oversaw the growth of a membership of over 4,000 care experienced people and led on various influencing and community-based initiatives.

Prior to this he worked in residential childcare for several years.  Denny has a background in community education and is passionate about social justice and campaigning.

Denny is a football fan and loves the outdoors, he is also an animal lover and a committed cat dad.

Gavin Sinclair – Director of Funding and Partnerships

Gavin joined Venture Trust in May 2023 and is responsible for our fundraising, impact and communications.  He began his career as a drama lecturer for West College Scotland as far back as 1998, where he worked for 14 years. During that period, he established a partnership with Kibble Education and Care Centre, where he discovered his passion for working with children and young people who had experienced trauma and other adverse childhood experiences. In 2012 he took on a new role at Kibble as the Arts Development Officer, where he managed many arts projects and began to dabble in fundraising, so that he could offer interesting and engaging evening and school holiday classes for the young people.

After successfully attracting funding and delivering a national arts project for care experienced young people, Gavin was appointed as the Fundraising Manager for the national charity Who Cares? Scotland, where he grew their income over a four-year period, before working as a freelance fundraising consultant, supporting a number of charities to reach their financial goals.

Gavin joined Venture Trust in 2023 as our Head of Fundraising and Impact and was promoted to Director level in 2024.

Gavin enjoys Karate and has a sausage dog called Mac who takes up most of his free time.

Connect with Gavin on LinkedIn