Tor Justad was born in 1945. During his early career he worked in various roles before training as a community worker. Between 1978 and 1987 he worked as Area Community Worker for Shetland Islands Council, supporting voluntary organisations, co-operatives and social enterprises in the North Mainland of Shetland. He was the first Chair of the Association of Community Enterprises in the Highlands and Islands (ACE-HI), from 1986-1987, supporting community enterprises across the region. In 1987 he moved to Stirling, and became the Manager of the Community Enterprise Support Unit (Central Region) Ltd. (CESU), providing support to community enterprises and credit unions, mainly through funding from the Urban Programme and European Union. During this period he was a Director of Community Business Scotland (CBS).
In 1994 he began working freelance as a Social Economy Adviser, trading as Tor Justad Associates, with contracts in the UK, Sweden, Ireland and other countries. Contracts included the creation of social enterprise and social audit training materials, and support for the co-operative and social enterprise sectors. Between 2000 and 2011, he was employed as a Co-operative and Membership Officer with the Co-operative Group, covering the Highlands and Islands. During this time, from 2009 to 2011, he was Co-ordinator of the Scottish partner element of the EU Northern Periphery Programme: Retail in Rural Regions project, a transnational project with partners in Nordic countries, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. He was a Director of CBS from 2002-2004, a Director of the Community Retailing Network from 2006-2013 and Vice Chair of the Highlands and Islands Community Energy Company from 2008-2009.
From 2011 onwards, he continued freelance work, mainly co-ordinating study visits to Scotland by educational and social enterprise groups from Scandinavia and a longer term partnership between three schools in West Lothian. In 2019 he acted as a consultant in a small consortium which conducted an independent review of fair trade sales and promotion in Scotland for the Scottish Government International Development Team, ‘What future for fair trade in Scotland?’ (Scottish Government, February 2020). He also had a number of voluntary commitments related to renewable energy, anti-nuclear campaigning and coastal rowing.