Instead, it’s an ongoing pursuit, with Scots at home and abroad pushing breakthroughs in everything from medicine to agriculture and satellite technology. There are also Scots at the top of big businesses around the globe, driving growth and expansion. That equates to serious intellectual capital that could be incredibly powerful if brought together.

Bringing those innovative voices and decision-makers, particularly within the Scottish diaspora, together and fostering collaboration between them is precisely what Dalgleish aims to do with SBN. The professional non-profit organisation, which now has more than 8,000 members across five continents, is defined by a social purpose to support Scottish-based companies and organisations to develop and grow through the utilisation of the Scottish business diaspora.

Creating a ‘Scottish home’ for global businesses

For Dalgleish, the genesis of the SBN dates back to 2008, when he was living in Scotland and working in London. After being asked to take part in an art project by the sculptor Antony Gormley, which involved him standing in a kilt and playing Scottish music, he realised that he didn’t have a “Scottish home” in London.

That feeling eventually evolved into Dalgleish and a few others helping Scottish entrepreneurs get started in London. It quickly became apparent how helpful those connections were. And if they were helpful for Scots setting up shop in London, how much more helpful could they be for Scottish entrepreneurs around the world? Moreover, what could those connections do for Scotland?

“Our primary purpose is to connect Scots and the Scottish diaspora. So, if a Scot dropped me a note asking to find out what’s happening in Paraguay for example, I can connect them with Scots living out there,” Dalgleish explained in a recent interview. “The theory is that in business it’s those meetings where you learn something you didn’t know before that can be transformational.”

An approach rooted in entrepreneurship

It’s an approach which, in many ways, reflects how Dalgleish has tackled entrepreneurship and investing throughout his storied entrepreneurial and investment career. Having worked as a global sales director in the mid to late 1990s for a hard drive company, he founded his first startup in 2001.

Since then, he’s founded and invested in multiple companies, while also serving on the boards of numerous entrepreneurial organisations, charities, and institutes. Much of that activity is premised on the fact that teams tend to go much further than individuals.

“In our businesses we build teams,” he says. “We identify, attract and motivate the best talent available in the market to help bring our vision to reality. However, I believe it is not the team we direct that is the critical factor, it is the team we attract to share their wisdom and connections who are the game changers.”

While that might be a board of advisors in an individual business, for groups of entrepreneurs it looks more like a network of fellow entrepreneurs, investors, and businesspeople. These networks, like the SBN, don’t just provide support and knowledge but can also help forge the mutually beneficial relationships that are so vital to the success of any business.

“I’ve got a brilliant approach for tasks I don’t like doing,” Dalgleish said in a recent interview. “I discovered it quite late in life and it’s inspired: I find people who like doing the things I don’t like doing and I let them do it.”

The same could broadly be said for anything a business needs to do but which it doesn’t have the capacity or skillset for. The same is also true for entering a new territory or market. So, if a Scottish company’s trying to expand somewhere it’s never done business, it can try do so on its own steam (the hard way) or it can partner with other Scots who’ve done so previously, which is where the SBN comes in.

Working on the homefront

Of course, in order for Scottish businesses to be able to expand in a way where they can lean on the likes of the SBN, they must have first built up a solid base at home. And that’s where some of Dalgleish’s other work comes in.

In addition to his work as an entrepreneur, investor, and board member, he represents the UK Government's Department of International Trade Global Entrepreneur Programme, attracting international entrepreneurs to Scotland. He’s also the founder and driving force behind Scotland’s GovTech Cluster and chair of the advisory board for Civtech, the global leading GovTech innovation hub which sits as part of the Scottish governments Digital Directorate.

GovTech doesn’t just have the potential to improve lives in Scotland, it’s also an ripe for Scottish entrepreneurial expansion.

“Scotland has so much to offer the world from an innovation perspective,” he says. “It’s a living part of our heritage. For that innovation to reach its full potential, we don’t just need to incubate great Scottish businesses but take them to the world, while also bringing the world to Scotland.”

For most people, that would sound like a daunting prospect, but the man known as “Mr Scotland” is showing that it can be done and done well.