Digital Opportunities For Ambitious Islands: How Small Places Can Achieve Big Things

Founder and MD of NB Communication, a digital agency based in Shetland and Edinburgh, serving clients throughout Scotland and in London. Currently delivering the 'Promote Shetland' DMO service for Shetland Islands Council, while growing NB's reach nationally and internationally.

I have 20+ years deep expertise helping remote and rural locations with positioning and promotion to help attract the right people to live, work, study, visit and invest.

NB was ranked the number #2 small agency in the UK for customer satisfaction in the Drum's Digital Census

Dawn Repetto works and lives on the remote south Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha and was appointed Head of Tourism in March 2009. Before taking on this new position Dawn was employed in the Finance Department, but always felt that when visitors came to the island there was really no entity informing them of what they needed to know; she often felt visitors were a little lost in a very remote place. When the new position as Head of Tourism became available Dawn jumped at the opportunity. Dawn is married to Robin and they have two children, Jade and Amber. Although Tristan is remote Dawn has had the opportunity to work in the UK, St Helena Island and Isle of Man: seeing how tourism functions elsewhere has given her a clear concept of how visitors to the island want to experience life lived off the beaten track. Dawn loves being able to explain how Tristanians thrive without modern conveniences such as restaurants and ATMs; it’s a life close to nature, based on fishing and subsistence farming.

Lauren is the Project Manager on the Promote Shetland contract, a DMO service promoting Shetland as a desirable place to live, work, study, visit and invest.

Lauren has a background in heritage and arts engagement. She first arrived in Shetland in 2006 to undertake fieldwork for her PhD in the Bronze Age archaeology of the islands and liked it so much that in 2010 she decided to stay. Prior to joining NB Communication she worked various roles in heritage and cultural engagement, recording and promoting Shetland’s place names, exploring the early roots of democracy as part of the team on the THING Project, and leading the marketing team at Shetland Arts Development Agency.

Stewart is our co-founder and a Bullhorn and cloud technology expert. He loves helping clients find the ideal solution to help automate sales and recruitment processes.

Joe is the Founder of Kintechi Ltd, an independent consultancy based in London focused on delivering digital transformation at local, regional and national levels. He is a recognised subject matter expert in the digital transformation arena. A professional hybrid; at home in both the public and private sector, he has a background in the Public Sector (where he spent seven years as a chief officer in local and regional govt focussed on economic development), ICT, SME linkage, economic development, education and digital enablement in the UK, Europe, the Far and Middle East. He is on the World Bank’s Smart City Expert Framework, a member of the Stakeholder Group for the European Commission’s Smart Cities and Communities Group, the EU-China smart city expert group; Advisory Board Chair, Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Programme Director and Special Adviser to the board of Digital Jersey.