First Bus has made four new appointments across its Scotland businesses

Graeme Macfarlan has joined the business as Commercial Director for Scotland. Graeme will take overall responsibility for all areas of commercial development and specifically, he will oversee fares and ticketing as well as the development of local marketing strategies designed to support increased passenger growth, stakeholder engagement and contract tendering.

Graeme has over 25 years of commercial and marketing roles within the rail and ferry sector, most recently with Caledonian MacBrayne where he was Commercial Director. Prior to that he held several senior roles within rail including Head of Marketing at First ScotRail.

Graeme Lafferty has also been appointed as the new PR Executive for Scotland. Graeme will lead the PR activity for Scotland and joins the business from Ingen Technical Services, where he held the position of Communications Officer and prior to this worked as a Senior Sports Journalist across Scotland.

John Maclean joined the business as the new Marketing Manager for Scotland in February. John joins from the 5-a-side football operator, Goals Soccer Centres, which owns 49 clubs across the UK and USA. John led the marketing team and is highly experienced in digital marketing. Prior to that he spent 13 years at Coca-Cola Enterprises in various roles within Marketing, Corporate Affairs and Sponsorship as well as a marketing role at Whyte and MacKay distillers.

Finally, Robert Larkins has joined the business as Fleet Engineer for First Glasgow, with responsibility for all engineering departments across our Glasgow business. Robert will manage the day-to-day operation of all maintenance departments, ensuring the highest standard of safety, presentation and reliability of all the vehicles in Glasgow.

Robert brings more than 30 years’ experience in the bus industry and has previously held senior roles with First Glasgow as Engineering Quality and Standards Manager, Head of Engineering with Arriva Scotland West, and most recently, Chief Engineer with McGill’s. He will report directly to the Engineering Director of First Bus in Scotland.

Andrew Jarvis, Managing Director, said: “I am delighted to welcome Graeme, John, Graeme and Robert to our team at this exciting time. Graeme Macfarlan will head up our Scottish commercial teams who design and market the services, routes and ticket options across the four businesses based in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Larbert. Graeme brings a wealth of experience from recent senior commercial roles at ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne and Scotrail.

“John Mclean joins us in February as Marketing Manager for Scotland and will be putting his expertise to good use leading the marketing teams promoting the networks, routes and fare options during the customer led move to mobile phone mTickets and on bus contactless payments.

“Robert brings a wealth of experience to lead our Glasgow engineering team and will be very much focused on the delivery of safe, reliable, clean and comfortable vehicles for our customers across the City. Robert will also lead on inspiring and training our existing engineering team and running the extensive apprenticeship programme that we have in place.

“Finally, Graeme Lafferty joins the business as Public Relations Executive. Graeme has significant journalism and PR experience and will be the main contact for all our public relations in the areas we run across Scotland.”