Martin Avila, ECON’s Executive Director, is a Glasgow born community and civil society organisation leader. He has two decades experience of leading and developing nonprofit organisations and social enterprises as a co-founder and Director. He is a committed internationalist, with time spent in European youth and social movements involved in active citizenship and non-formal education. 

Currently completing his MBA at the University of Strathclyde, where he won the Visionary Leadership scholarship, he is a skilled public speaker, comfortable with a wide range of audiences and equally at ease with people and numbers.

Before joining ECON, Martin was the Group CEO at the CEIS Group, the UK’s largest and oldest Social Economy support organisation. He previously led a high-profile community buyout and community-led regeneration project at the Kinning Park Complex, one of Glasgow’s most iconic activist and social spaces. He is a current Board member of Community Land Scotland, the voice of Scotland’s Land Reform movement