THE new president of Scottish Chambers of Commerce has had quite a journey to the position.

After a decade in the Army, including two years as equerry to The Duke of York, Tim Allan spent the next seven years in private wealth management before acquiring Motor Fuel Group (MFG) along with oil entrepreneur Alasdair Locke, which he helped grow to a £2 billion business.

He is now chief executive of Unicorn, a commercial and residential property owner with a significant interest in the Dundee waterfront area, and remains a non-executive director at MFG.

In April 2010, he was given The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He is also a member of court at the University of St Andrews and is vice chairman of the V&A Museum of Design Campaign.

In short, he has achieved quite a bit, and his next ambition is to use all he has learned and put it to use to further the cause of the 11,000 businesses the Scottish Chambers counts as members.

Arriving into the president’s chair having served in the same role at Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce from 2014 to 2016, he is well-versed in the lobbying required of the role, but he acknowledges that this is the highest-profile position yet, and it is one he is very much looking forward to.

“The two areas where we can really improve how things are is in education and skills, and internationalisation,” he says. “The other priority will be to hold all governments to account over the way they treat business.”

The two-year period Mr Allan will serve comes at an unprecedented time for Scottish and UK politics and speaking the day after Prime Minister Theresa May called the General Election, Mr Allan said that what Scottish business needed was certainty in their outlook.

“It’s quite clear that Scottish Chambers of Commerce members are tired of the uncertainty caused by the constitutional arrangements over Brexit and the calls for a second independence referendum,” he says.

Mr Allan notes that members are near unanimous in their regret that Brexit took place and their desire to see it quickly and amicably resolved.

“We face uncertainty whatever happens, but the Prime Minister’s intent to get herself a sufficient majority to give herself room for manoeuvre, well, we welcome anything which gives some more strength to her negotiating for the Brexit that business needs.”

Asked what members want from Brexit, he says: “What they want might not be achievable but what they want is unfettered access to the European markets in the ways we’ve enjoyed for the last 40 years.

“They want certainty over the employment and residency rights over European workers. It’s quite clear that the leisure, hospitality, absolutely and parts of agriculture rely on there being access to European workers.”

The skills agenda is an issue that Mr Allan returns to frequently. The major concern, he says, is that Scotland does not seem to have the appropriate skills base coming out of its education system.

“We should be looking for more root and branch reform in how education is delivered in the country,” he says, adding that there should be a thorough examination of higher education and apprenticeships to determine what is the most appropriate route into the world of work.

“We need to look at how we train our young people, all the way from primary, through secondary and into work or higher education. Putting quotas in for universities is not necessarily productive if [students] are not coming out with appropriate qualifications to get them into employment.”

While generally in praise of much of the Scottish Government’s work, Mr Allan says the Enterprise and Skills Review has not yet accomplished what is required.

“I’m not entirely sure the Government is quite clear what it is trying to achieve on the skills agenda,” he says, noting that Scottish Chambers has been consulted on the review.

“We remain very keen to be involved,” he says. “Our members are saying to us that they are not getting the right type of people into their workforce.”

Mr Allan took up his post on April 5, replacing Nora Senior. He is wasting no time in pushing Scotland on the global stage, leaving today on an eight-day trade visit to China.

The purpose of the trip is to introduce chief executives and presidents of various regional Chambers to policy makers and investors in Beijing and the Shandong province, with the aim of making strong business connections at governmental and business-to-business level to prepare a full trade mission in the months ahead.

“Scotland does not export enough and we don’t have enough international contact in the emerging markets, it’s as simple as that,” says Mr Allan.

As a serving chief executive, he is certainly set for a busy two years but he says he is in the lucky position where his day job is “mainly as an active investor”, meaning both roles can be carried out concurrently. Time will also be spent at St Andrews University and at the V&A Museum in Dundee, where he is vice-chairman.

His Unicorn business also has around £2m invested in property in Dundee. “There’s enough to keep me busy,” he quips, but adds: “I’m really passionate about these things. The V&A is transformational for Dundee. What it can do for the city is extraordinary.”

Discussing the highlights of his career, Mr Allan says the stand out was the acquisition of Motor Fuel Group in December 2011.

“That is a history in itself. A year of literally every single day something else went wrong. It was a terribly difficult time to convince investors to put their money anywhere, and when we eventually did that after three sleepless nights of negotiations, it was the absolute highlight because that was the point upon which a billion pound business was built.”

That business now has 405 petrol stations across the UK, which he says makes it something of an economic bellwether.

“Motor Fuel Group gives me a feel for what is happening on the economy. There is some tremendous growth in England that we are not seeing in Scotland, and that is a real cause for concern.”

Over the next two years, addressing those concerns will frame Mr Allan’s tenure.

“I really believe business should be a force for good, a way we can really improve the quality of life for folk across the country so my job is not just to represent business to the policymakers but to explain policy to business,” he says.