Alan is a former Assistant Chief Constable in the Police Service of Northern Ireland with 32 years experience, 10 of those as a Chief Officer, in policing the various challenges in a post-conflict society, This has provided Alan with a unique expertise in community policing but more importantly the delivery of strategic organisational transformation delivered with and through cultural change and leadership development. Alan himself is a twice Executive Programme graduate from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and of The Smurfit Business School at University College Dublin. As well as being a Fellow in The Chartered Management Institute, Alan was, in 2022, a Syndicate Director on the UK Policing Strategic Command Course, a reflection of his commitment to building police leadership capability and capacity.

Operationally, Alan has at various times held strategic leadership responsibility for organisational training, firearms training and operations, local policing operations and in the unique policing environment that is Northern Ireland, public order/public safety policing. In addition, Alan has extensive operational experience in policing major international events hosted in Northern Ireland.

Internationally Alan, as the co-lead for the ‘Cross Border Policing Strategy in Ireland’ drafted, negotiated and delivered the first ever such strategy adopted by Ministers from both jurisdictions. Further afield Alan has led on programmes to change public order policing practices in the ‘Middle East’ in support of the UK government’s strategic programme.

For ten years Alan was the UK policing lead for the Contact Management business area where he was responsible for drafting, negotiating and delivering national strategies across the UK and for representing policing across statutory and governmental partners. This work also led to Alan being appointed to the role Vice-Chair of the Digital Public Contact Programme Board for the UK and of Chair of the Emergency Services Contact Management Committee comprising partners in the public, private and governmental sector and reporting to Government Ministers on key issues.

Alan holds accreditation as a company director from the Institute of Directors and served for 6 years on the Board of Directors for Police Digital Services for the UK based in London.

Alan was awarded the King’s Police Medal in the 2023 UK New Year’s Honours List ‘For Services to Policing’.