ARLENE Cairns has been appointed chief financial officer (CFO) at James Donaldson and Sons.
She has joined the timber specialist from Aviva, where she was chief finance operations officer. Prior to that, Arlene was CFO for Alliance Trust Savings and has also held senior roles in Ireland and Australia. She will succeed Andrew Donaldson as CFO following his promotion to CEO.
Andrew Donaldson, CEO of the James Donaldson Group said, “I couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Arlene to the group, where she will undoubtedly drive and modernise our finance operations. Arlene has a proven track record of leading finance functions and driving strategic transformational change and improvements in global organisations. Her extensive corporate experience makes her well suited to take on the role of CFO and an excellent addition to our senior leadership team. I look forward to seeing the impact of her presence as our new CFO.”
Arlene commented on her appointment, “I’m excited to be joining the James Donaldson Group’s leadership team and leading finance, while supporting Andrew and chairman Michael Donaldson to continue the growth and development of the JDS Group and contribute to the future success of the business.”
Arlene was also a board director for homeless charity Social Bite, helping to deliver the Social Bite Communities village in Edinburgh in 2018. She is also part of the University of Edinburgh Women in Executive Leadership Group.
