Purdies Scottish Soap Company:
Denice Purdie started her company on just £35! She says you don't need huge amounts of funding to get a business off the ground, just a great product and bags of energy and self belief. Denice is the winner of The Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 Award and is delighted to share her success story without any funding with Thrive. (www.thescottishsoapcompany.co.uk)

Airdrie Savings Bank:
Jim Lindsay is not only the head of the UK's last independant savings bank, he is now the boss of the last independent Scottish-owned bank.  His approach to banking is almost revolutionary to a generation that has seen Scotland's financial services industry focus on frenetic mergers and acquisitions, globalisation, leveraging of balance sheets, mega-bonus culture, conflicts of interest, engineering of products, outsourcing, offshoring and digitalisation.

Jim is an advocate of what he calls utility banking. In essence this is a back to basics philosophy where personal service means everything which is music to everyone's ears in the recovering climate. (www.airdriesavingsbank.com)

Reform Scotland:
Ben Thomson is a high-profile and influential figure in Scottish politics and business. He is Chairman of the centre-right think-tank Reform Scotland, investment bank Noble and the National Galleries of Scotland.

He is also a close confidante of First Minister Alex Salmond and was involved in the attempts to find a Scottish buyer for the stricken Dunfermline Building Society.  Ben was one of the few figures on the Scottish business scene to warn of the adverse competition policy implications of the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds and he worked behind the scenes on the legal challenge to the deal.  (www.reformscotland.com)

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