Alana Mackenzie

Mackenzie Commercial Finance Limited

I'm a founder, director and finance broker at Mackenzie Commercial Finance, a commercial finance brokerage based in the north of Scotland and working with businesses right across the country.

I specialise in asset finance and business loans. Asset finance is funding the vehicles, plant, machinery and equipment that businesses actually run on, and raising finance against assets a business already owns outright. We work with everyone from new starts to established corporate clients.

My route in wasn't the obvious one. I spent my early career as a paralegal in Inverness before moving into finance, and it turned out to be better preparation than it sounds with compliance that has to be right, and a client who needs plain answers rather than jargon.

Commercial finance is a very male dominated industry, and in the Highlands more so than most places. That's true of the people arranging the funding, and it's true of the rooms where it gets discussed. I'd like to see that change, and the practical contribution I can make is a simple one: women running businesses up here should be able to have a finance conversation with another woman if that's easier. Not because the numbers are any different, but because being taken seriously from the first sentence shouldn't be something you have to work for.

If you're weighing up funding and would rather talk it through with me, please do.

Outside MCF, life is fairly full: three children, two cats and a dog. My husband Martin is also my business partner in the business.

Visit Mackenzie Commercial Finance Limited

In-Business Centre, 24 Longman Drive, Inverness, IV1 1SU