Northern Isles native Cynthia Spencer has been appointed commercial director of NorthLink Ferries. She will take up the role in March next year.

Ms Spencer has spent 15 years with Visa, the global payment card company. She will join NorthLink from her present role as Head of Product Management for Europe with Visa Commercial.

She will assume the position vacated by Gareth Crichton who announced earlier this year that it was his intention to leave the company, which he joined prior to its formal launch in 2002, to pursue other interests.

Ms Spencer, originally from Kirkwall, was educated at the town’s Grammar School. She left the Orkney Isles in 1987 after a spell working with North Eastern Farmers Ltd in Kirkwall.

In 1993 she joined Visa Europe, based in London. She has graduated through the ranks of the payment card giant to her current position in which she has responsibility across Europe for the placement, price and promotion of Visa’s commercial offering. This includes B2B product strategy, customer propositions, product repackaging, communications and marketing.

Ms Spencer has accountancy and marketing qualifications and previously with Visa she had responsibility for marketing in the Iberia and Nordic territories. This included negotiating and implementing an agreement with the Portuguese football team whereby Visa became the national side’s main sponsor.

Ms Spencer said: “I’m absolutely thrilled to have been given this opportunity. In a sense it provides the chance to return to my roots and to become deeply involved with a service which is so crucial to the continued wellbeing of the islands communities.

“Like all islanders I grew up with a constant awareness of the lifeline provided by the ‘Northboats’ and to able to join NorthLink at this time in its development and at this stage in my career is a bit of a dream come true,” she said.