Scottish tech boss hits out at ‘so-called party of business’

Part of the team which built Edinburgh-based Skyscanner into a tech “unicorn”, Mr Logan was appointed by Kate Forbes, now Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for the Economy to review Scotland’s technology ecosystem in 2020. He went on to implement a range of projects for ministers which are credited with boosting the Scottish tech scene, including TechScaler, the start-up incubation and learning network which now has around 900 registered members.

However, Mr Logan announced he was stepping down as chief entrepreneurial advisor to the Scottish Government last month, citing the “draining” effects of attacks from right-wing politicians and some media outlets.

Much of the media attention focused on his remuneration and whether it was value for money to Scottish taxpayers. Last month, the Scottish Government revealed following a freedom of information request that Mr Logan was paid a total of £263,863.44 for his work between July 2022 and July 2024. That came after Mr Logan defended his pay before the Scottish Parliament’s Economy and Fair Work Committee in January, amid claims by Conservative MSP Graham Simpson that his earnings were “colossal”.

Read more:

Asked by The Herald if he felt the criticism he received had been unwarranted, Mr Logan said: “Yes, in short. The way I thought about this situation is that it should be considered by all parties a good thing if you have senior business figures working very closely with the government of the day, whichever government that is, to advance economic [and] industrial policy. From out the gates, it should be considered a goodness for the country.

“And I think that, actually, part of the issue that brought attention to me was that essentially I was the only person doing that. It made my role a curiosity, and in the febrile politics that we have operating today, including Scotland, a curiosity is something which can be attacked.

“It was a disappointment for me that the work I was doing, which I think was very impactful and valuable to the country and was certainly considered so by those in the industry, didn’t attract any interest from the Conservative Party at all, the once so-called party of business. Instead, I was considered to be a target that, in undermining, could perhaps undermine the government by proxy.

“I think that we really nowadays especially need better from our politicians. I was disappointed in that focus.”

Mr Logan added: “The role as defined probably needs to be revised in one way or another. I found myself in a difficult position where I was becoming increasingly a target of these attacks, never on the substance of what I was proposing implementing, always just on the fact of my existence.

“And as an advisor to government who scrupulously avoided any political position, because I think that is what someone in that role should do, it meant that I didn’t have a voice to counter any of that. That was a frustration.”

Asked why he reached a decision to leave at this juncture, Mr Logan said: “The answer to that is that I was coming up to the potential renewal of my contract and I did not know for sure [if] that was going to happen or what process we would go through.

“But it caught the attention of the Conservatives and certain publications, and it was clear to me that was going to become a situation where more and more of these attacks and these stories were going to appear over the next few months. You start to ask yourself: is this something that I need to endure, or is it time to think about doing something else?

“The other consideration is that I have been doing this role now for four and a half years, since I started writing the STER (Scottish technology ecosystem review) report. The combination of both of those things made me think it was time to move to other things.”

Asked to comment on the progress made within Scotland’s start-up ecosystem during his tenure, Mr Logan said there has been a “sea-change” in sentiment. Whereas before the STER report there were few conversations in government about the start-up sector and the need for Scotland to become a technology start-up nation that was “at least the peer of countries like Finland, Sweden, Estonia [and] Lithuania”, understanding of the tech sector and the value of entrepreneurship are now “actively part of policy discussion” across political parties. He said this was partly brought about by the “stimulus” of the government having a chief entrepreneurial advisor.

Mr Logan also noted there was a lot more “confidence” and “optimism” around. “I think we are actually seeing more start-ups being created than previously,” he said. “So I think thematically there has been a significant change”.

He also pointed to a “long list” of projects that have got off the ground over the course of his tenure. He highlights the impact made by initiatives such as TechScaler, which has 900 firms registered in its network, around two-thirds of which Mr Logan are “early-stage” and a third “scaling companies”, the Ecosystem Fund, and the Northern Scale-up Fund. He also authored the Pathways Review to address gender imbalance in entrepreneurship which has let to initiatives such as the Pathways Fund. “There is a lot that’s happened that’s visible to people,” he said. “And there is a lot that has happened below the surface that has helped just galvanise the sector.”

He added: “I think there is a body of work there that everybody in the industry, and close to the industry, appreciates has made a difference to Scotland. I would have loved to have done more, I would love to have gone faster, all the things that people in my position will always feel and should feel, but we are very far away from a couple of reports on a shelf that no one read, and no one did anything with. We are not in that territory at all.”