Dr Marie Macklin CBE is a ground-breaking female entrepreneur and business leader.
Born and raised in Kilmarnock, an industrial town in Scotland, Marie has built a successful business empire, career and reputation through hard work and determination propelled by her community values and by leading from the heart.
Early Years and founding of the HALO Urban Regeneration Company
After leaving school at sixteen, Marie’s journey to being one of Scotland’s most highly regarded and successful businesswomen started when she studied as an accountant at Glasgow Caledonian University, subsequently working with Morrison Construction PLC, responsible for costing and sub-contractor management. She later joined MJ Marketing and Management Consultants, with offices in Glasgow and New York, with responsibility for a portfolio of clients in various sectors, assisting with business plans, marketing and branding.
Marie was inspired and influenced by many, but a well-known face on the small screen, TV star and renowned businessman, Sir John Harvey Jones MBE caught her attention. His award winning show ‘Troubleshooter’ in the early 90s in which he advised struggling businesses, led to Marie’s aspirations to work in the City and to support and restructure businesses.
A move to London in 1992 led to Marie progressing in financial services at the Royal Bank of Scotland in a period marked by an existential economic crisis known as “Black Wednesday”. With a portfolio that covered Glasgow, New York, and London, where she lived at the time, Marie returned home due to a health scare caused by endometriosis and to support the family business.
Although unexpected, this change led to Marie buying and transforming her father’s property development and construction business, the Klin Group, and founding the HALO Urban Regeneration Company. She was on a journey of change. Her mission at Klin was to invest in deprived and economically challenged areas and communities – creating aspiration and opportunity.
Investment & Regeneration
Marie also founded ‘Macklin Enterprise Partnerships‘ an investment vehicle that supports emerging entrepreneurs and businesses through special-purpose funds, created and managed with like-minded third parties to support a buoyant investment ecosystem across the UK.
In 2009, through public consultation and by bringing her community together, Marie developed the unique ‘HALO’ development masterplan for a former Diageo site in Kilmarnock. Phase one of the development opened in April 2022 and the multifaceted regeneration of the 28-acre site, formerly the home of Johnnie Walker, the world’s leading Scotch whisky, is on track to generate over £200million GDP and 1500 jobs.
While driving the Klin property business, brownfield developments, some with listed properties, in Glasgow, Paisley, Renfrew, Edinburgh and South West Scotland brought affordable private housing, commercial and retail premises to challenged communities.
Her pioneering vision has resulted in her name being synonymous with tangible sustainability regeneration across the UK, with a vast influx of praise, recognition of best practice, and multiple visits from high profile national and international policy makers eager to know more about the multi award winning HALO and its economic impact.
A Trusted Advisor & Mentor
Marie has held numerous non-executive and mentoring roles including Board Member at the Scottish Property Federation and the Board of Management at Ayrshire College where she was Vice Chair of the Finance and Property Committees. In October 2016, she was appointed to the Economic Leaders Board (ELB) by Lord William Haughey OBE to oversee the Glasgow and Clyde Valley City Deal, a £1.1 billion infrastructure initiative funded by UK and Scottish Governments.
In 2017, Marie was appointed an Advisory Board Member of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and Women’s Enterprise Scotland – Women’s Business Mentoring – and in March 2018 she was appointed to the Commercial Advisory Group of Sunderland based Northern Housing Consortium (NHC).
In June 2018, Marie was invited by Scottish Power CEO Keith Anderson to be a founder member of the Powerful Women mentoring scheme a collaboration between Scottish Power, CBI Scotland and 18 Scottish business leaders.
Marie is Patron of CentreStage Communities, a social enterprise arts organisation which works in some of the most economically-challenged areas in Scotland.
Marie brought the first Morrisons Supermarket to Scotland in 2003, in a £100million regeneration development in her hometown of Kilmarnock, a success that led to a long-standing relationship with one of the U.K biggest supermarket companies.
Music at the heart… “Let the People sing again.”
At the age of thirty, Marie was diagnosed with dyslexia – resulting in a commitment to the development, excellence, and philanthropy of young people.
Marie talks with passion about her love for music and how it was her poetry, safe place and sanctuary during her time at school, a creative way that helped her escape from the everyday challenges that dyslexia presented.
HALO #RockMe, the flexible workspace brand founded by Marie is all about music and rocking the economy – a prime example of music’s influence in her entrepreneurial approach.
“When we collide, we come together.”
“When we collide, we come together” one of Marie’s most loved lyrics have inspired her to negotiate as a leader and bring communities together when facing economic collisions from factory closures and the devastation left behind and to speak out for communities and towns that need to be heard. She challenges and brings together the interests of people, businesses, government and community organisations to create a new green, thriving industrial revolution.
It’s more than the love of music. it’s the positive drive and energy it provides Marie to help make a positive difference to all she supports.
When Marie is speaking, investing, mentoring, and managing her businesses, music is never far from conversation.