Speakers

Sean Gallagher is co-founder and Managing Director of Dundalk based firm Smarthomes. Set up in 2002, the company specialises in pre cabling new houses and apartment developments for the latest in Communications and Entertainment technology. Smarthomes have won a number of awards including the IntertradeIreland Seedcorn Competition, the Deloitte Rising Star Award, the SFA Innovation Award, the Plan Expo Construction award.

Sean was a finalist in the 2006 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Programme. In 2008 he was appointed by the Government to the Board of the Cross Border Trade Body, Intertrade Ireland. He was recently featured as one of the entrepreneurs in KPMG’s book on Irish Enterprises called “That Will Never Work”,

He is a panel on the hugely popular RTE TV series Dragons Den and recently won the RTE Reality Boxing TV show “Charity Lords of the Rings”.

Danny McCoy:  Danny McCoy is Director General of IBEC (Irish Business and Employers Confederation).  Prior to coming to IBEC, he was a Senior Research Officer at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and prior to that an economist in the Central Bank of Ireland. He has held lecturing posts at Dublin City University, University College London, University of Oxford and Trinity College Dublin. He was Manager of the European Forecasting Network comprising ten European research institutes in a joint project for the European Commission. He is currently a member of the National and Economic and Social Council (NESC), the Commission on Taxation, the National Statistics Board, the board of FAS (National Training Body), the Foundation for Fiscal Studies and the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland.

Larry Farrell: The Farrell Company, with offices in Arizona and Virginia, USA, was founded in 1983 by Larry Farrell. The firm operates directly in the  US and  Canada and through affiliates in Asia, Europe, Latin America  and Africa. Nearly one million participants have attended its programs in the past quarter century.

Farrell’s first book, Searching For The Spirit Of Enterprise, established him as an international authority on entrepreneurship and high growth companies.  His next book, The Entrepreneurial Age, expanded upon that original theme into how the power of entrepreneurship can be harnessed by private companies as well as governmental agencies to compete and prosper in the 21st century. Getting Entrepreneurial!, his third book, is an application-driven guide for “the 70 percent of the workforce who dream of someday creating and running their own businesses.”  A fourth book is currently in the works.  Larry is also a contributing editor for The Conference Board Review, the magazine of the The Conference Board in New York City.

The firm’s training and consulting services are based on its original research into the high-growth business practices of the world’s great entrepreneurs. Its widely used Spirit Of Enterprise Seminars and Entrepreneurial Age Keynotes have been delivered to corporate and government clients in 40 countries, across seven languages.  The company’s Getting Entrepreneurial! Seminar, based on the book which shares its namesake, has  been well-received in Europe, Asia and the US.

Larry Farrell and his company’s programs have received acclaim from Business Week, The Conference Board, Peter Drucker, Tom Peters and thousands of demanding clients worldwide.  Clients range from Global 1,000 companies to governmental agencies responsible for job creation and economic development.

Conor Fahy, Enterprise Ireland

Conor Fahy will is the Regional Director, Border Counties & Northern Ireland with Enterprise Ireland.   Conor has over 20 year’s international experience having joined the Irish Export Board in 1986 where he worked in Scandinavia. He then joined the Irish Dairy Board where he was based in Italy. He joined the Irish Trade Board in 1990 and was initially assigned to manage their first office in Budapest, Hungary. He subsequently managed the operations of the agency in Italy  and returned to Dublin in 2004 to manage the Client Information Centre.

Deirdre Walsh, ChinaGreen:

Deirdre Walsh, Founder and Managing Director of ChinaGreen, is a UCD BBLS and Strathclyde MBA graduate. Deirdre has years of senior project management and business development experience in China. Deirdre speaks Mandarin Chinese and English and is a regular speaker on various aspects of doing business in China at business events in Ireland.

Harry Grill, Corporate Partner, K&L Gates

Harry Grill is a partner in the corporate practice group of K&L Gates.  He counsels both international and U.S. clients on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and government contracts and procurement policy across industry groups with an emphasis on cross-border and other strategic transactions. His experience ranges from advising emerging companies on day-to-day legal advice to implementing corporate dispositions. He has considerable experience guiding his clients, both internationally and in the United States, through their intellectual property and product distribution strategies as well as advising international businesses looking to establish a commercial presence in the United States.  He serves as U.S. counsel to various United Kingdom, Irish and EU-based venture capital and investment banking firms on various matters.

Richard O’Connor, Cruickshank Intellectual Property Attorneys

Educated at St Conleth’s College and at the NCI, Richard holds a BA in Accounting and Human Resource Management. He also holds a M.Sc. in Technology and Innovation Management from DIT. He has worked in a number of industries since completing his education, including manufacturing and tourism, which has given him an insight into the workings and needs of various areas of production and service provision. Before joining Cruickshank in 2003, Richard spent eight years working in the business-to-business services area for the Irish operations of UK Plc’s including Reed and Hays. He joined the Cruickshank team as General Manager, and now plays an important role in client liaison. Responsible for the commercial activities of the practice, Richard uses his wealth of practical experience to advise all clients, from individuals to multinationals, how best to protect, utilise and profit from their IPR. Richard is an Irish and European Trade Mark Attorney and a member of the Licensing Executives Society (LES). In the past year he has presented several lectures on the Commercial Implications of Intellectual Property in Ireland for organisations such as the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME), the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), Dublin Chamber of Commerce and Dublin BIC.

Ian Brannigan, Western Development Commission

Ian is the Regional Development Manager with the Western Development Commission, an organisation tasked with fostering growth in the western region of Ireland. His background is in engineering and management within the international  ICT sector and latterly  within the realm of strategic business development  for regions in the UK and Ireland. Professional qualifications include a physics degree from Dublin City University , and an MBA. Ian’s current focus within the WDC The current focus is on the development of jobs and enterprise opportunities in the region within the creative economy (the Creative West program).

Brian Mulligan, IT Sligo

Brian Mulligan is the Open Learning Coordinator at the Institute of Technology Sligo where he has lectured since 1984.   He has been instrumental in the rapid growth in online learning in IT Sligo since 2002 and significantly involved in the growth of e-learning in Ireland since 1999, organising the EdTech series of conferences since 2000 and as a founding member of the Irish Learning Technology Association in 2002.  His main areas of expertise are in web-casting Webinars), synchronous online training, instructor-led online training and rapid development of online training.

• Amanda Scott & Oonagh Monaghan
• Open Coffee Sligo, a casual networking group who are eager to highlight the creative and innovative work of companies and individuals in the North West Region.

Co Sligo VEC Dragon’s Den Final Dragons:

Dragons:

Kevin Quinn Jnr:  Former President of the Sligo Chamber of Commerce and proprietor of the Embassy Rooms in Sligo’s JFK Parade, which includes Toffs Night Club and The Belfry bar.

Bernie Butler, MD, Good4U:  Bernie Butler and her family have been at the cold face of food manufacturing for the past 20yrs. In 2001 the family successfully sold their first business and in 2004 Bernie embarked on a new venture and founded Good4UFood & Drink Company Limited. Good4U manufacturing is based in NI where they produce a range of Health Goods with Functional properties.  Bernie has recently been appointed Chair of Fáilte Ireland North West.

Seamus Farrell: Seamus Farrell, MD SF Engineering, and Sligo Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year, will join the Dragon’s Den panel.  SF Engineering, which Seamus Farrell started in 1982 provide customised process and packaging solutions to the majority of blue chip food companies in Ireland and Europe. SF is the biggest privately owned solutions provider in Ireland and the UK.