Jeanette Forbes, Chief Executive and founder of the PCL Group, is a qualified systems engineer who established her own company in March 2000 after she was made redundant during a downturn in the oil and gas industry. The company provides data cabling structures for IT and telecoms systems and supply, maintenance and support of computer equipment to the offshore, marine, commercial and industrial sectors.

Jeanette has won a number of national awards and industry accolades, particularly for her work in promoting the career opportunities for women in what have been seen as predominantly male-dominated professions. These have included the Prowess Award for SET (Science, Engineering and Technology) and SET’s UK Enterprising Women Award. She became North-east Scotland’s first UK Female Entrepreneurship Ambassador in 2012.

She sits on the board of the Scottish Government Technology Advisory Group (TAG), set up in 2012 to help encourage greater links between technological research and business innovation. Earlier this year she was appointed to the board of the Scottish Government’s Digital Scotland – Business Excellence Partnership as the TAG representative. The partnership was set up to support Scotland’s goal of becoming a world class digital nation by 2020.

Jeanette is also listed on the Association of Colleges (AoC) national Roll of Honour and is a business champion for the Scottish Chambers of Commerce Business Mentoring Programme. Her work as a mentor has just been recognised when she won the Best Mentor Award in the national Mentorsme Excellence in Woman's Enterprise Mentoring 2014 Awards.

She is chair and trustee of the Seafarers Centre, a partner in the Women in ICT project with Aberdeen College, a member of the Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future (ACSEF) management team. She is also a Burgess of the City of Aberdeen.

Jeanette is a regular speaker at industry and business events, particularly on the theme of encouraging more young women to study the STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects with a view to considering a career in the energy sector.