Council
Mr Tom Byrne - President
Tom Byrne was formally appointed to the position of President of the Institute of Directors in Ireland at the AGM in June 2011 and will serve a two-year term. He is a Chartered Director, a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment. He set up Abaris Corporate Advisers Limited in 2001. Prior to that he was Head of Corporate Finance at Davy Stockbrokers, a position he held from 1987 to 2001. Before joining Davy, Tom was a partner in Arthur Andersen & Co. He has also been Chairman of Acumen & Trust Limited since 2007. Tom is on the board of the Irish Takeover Panel and is a non executive director of a number of both quoted and private companies. He holds a B.Comm degree from UCD.
Ms Ann Riordan
Ann Riordan was President of the Institute of Directors in Ireland from June 2009 - 2011. She held senior executive positions in the IT sector in the UK and Ireland at its height in the eighties, before setting up Microsoft Ireland in 1990 where she served as Country Manager until her retirement from that position in 2001. She served on the Information Society Steering Committee and the Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council. She is currently Chairman of the National Standards Authority of Ireland and Chairman of Dublin Regional Tourism Authority. In January 2009 she was appointed by Government to the board of the EBS Building Society. She also serves on the Board of Tourism Ireland and the advisory board of the UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business.
Mr Des Lamont
Des Lamont is Executive Chairman of L&P Financial Trustees. He has worked in the financial services sector for thirty years. Prior to the establishment of L&P Financial Trustees, he was a director of the Jefferson Smurfit Financial Services Division and of Beech Hill Pension Trustees. He is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute of Ireland and served on the National Pensions Board from 1986 to 1994. He was Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Irish Association of Pension Funds from 1988 until 1994. Des has been an appointed lay member of the Review Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland since 1995. He is currently non-executive Chairman of Medisec Ireland Ltd and a director of several other private companies. He served as the first Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Mater Misericordiae and the Children's University Hospitals from 2000 until 2009. He remains a Director of that company. He was appointed as the initial Chairman of the Leinster Professional Rugby Board in September 2008 and elected as President of the Leinster Branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union in May 2009. Leinster won the European Rugby Cup for the first time in May 2009. He has been a member of the Institute of Directors since the early 80’s and was elected onto the Council of the Institute of Directors in Ireland in June 2009.
Mr Martin Murphy
Martin Murphy, Managing Director, HP Ireland, is responsible for driving HP's business growth in the Irish market. Under his leadership, HP has experienced a strong and sustained commercial and financial performance and is now the largest IT and services provider in Ireland, employing over 4,000 people across a range of operations. In 2003, he successfully steered the Irish operation through the Compaq merger, one of the largest in the history of the state. In addition, Martin has spearheaded various global acquisitions locally, including the acquisition in 2008 of Electronic Data Systems, representing one of the biggest acquisitions ever made by a global ICT company. More recently Martin has been setting out the stall for HP as a key driver for innovation and job creation in the Irish economy. In March 2009, HP created 500 new jobs at its Corporate HQ in Leixlip, Co. Kildare as part of an €18million investment in a multi-lingual support centre. This was followed in November with a further 50 jobs being created at HP’s Galway software development centre which has been designated as a Centre of Expertise for Cloud Computing Services in product track, trace and authentication, placing it at the forefront of the development of new technologies, services and standards for cloud computing globally. In addition to Martin’s commitments as managing director of HP Ireland, he serves on the board of UCD Smurfit School and the Institute of Directors. He holds a BA.BAI(HONS) in Engineering and Maths and a MSc in Electronic Engineering from Trinity College Dublin.
Dr Michael J Somers
Michael Somers, B Comm, MEconSc, PhD is former Chief Executive of the National Treasury Management Agency. Prior to his appointment to the National Treasury Management Agency in 1990, he was Secretary, National Debt Management, in the Department of Finance and Secretary, Department of Defence. He is a member of the Board of the Irish Stock Exchange, the European Investment Bank, St. Vincent's Healthcare Group Ltd, and a member of the Council of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. He is also Chairman of Ulysses Securitisation plc., a member of the National Pensions Reserve Fund Commission and Chairman of the National Development Finance Agency.
Mr Michael Walsh
Michael Walsh is Chief Executive of Woodford Capital Limited, a Dublin based Investment Management firm. Michael is a non-executive director of NTR plc having served as Group Finance Director of NTR plc from 2003 to 2011. Prior to joining NTR plc, Michael was Group Finance Director and Company Secretary of Musgrave Group plc for ten years. Michael has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University College Cork and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1982. He worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers in both Dublin and London. Michael is a non-executive director of Boundary Capital plc and EFMI Global Utilities and Infrastructure Funds plc and was elected onto the Council of the Institute of Directors in Ireland in June 2009.
Mr Liam Daniel
Liam Daniel, B. Comm, FCA, is a Chartered Director. He is Executive Vice President and Company Secretary of Elan Corporation plc and has served in that role since December 2001. He was previously an executive director of Elan between 2003 and 2007. Liam joined Elan as Financial Controller in 1994. He was Financial Director of Xtravision plc from 1990 to 1992 and prior to that he held the position of Head of Finance of An Post for a period of three years. He is also a former president of the Financial Executives’ Association Ireland.
Ms Heather Ann McSharry
Heather Ann McSharry B.Comm, MBS, is a director of IDA Ireland and Chairman of the Trustee Board of Bank of Ireland pension fund. She was previously Managing Director of Reckitt Benckiser Ltd and Managing Director of Boots Healthcare in Ireland. She is a former director of Bank of Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association, and a former member of the Governing Authority of University College Dublin.
Ms Myra Garrett
Myra Garrett has held the position of Managing Partner of William Fry, one of Ireland’s leading corporate law firms, since 2008. She has over 20 years experience as a corporate lawyer, advising Irish and international companies and their boards on corporate finance projects, corporate governance and general compliance. She is a director of the Road Safety Authority and a number of private companies.
Ms Ita Gibney
Ita Gibney is founder and Managing Director of independent PR company, Gibney Communications Ltd, which she established in 1995. She is a former Director of Murray Consultants and Group Director of Corporate Affairs at Greencore Group plc. She is an Honours graduate (B.A.) of University College Dublin; holds an M.A. (English) from McMaster University, Canada and an MSc (Communications) from Boston University where she attended as Ireland’s John F. Kennedy Scholar. Ita is a Life Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland.
Mr Kevin Neary
Kevin Neary, a Chartered Director, is the co-founder and Managing Director of the GameStop Group, originally Gamesworld, which was founded in 1994. In 2003 GameStop Corp, a NYSE quoted company, acquired a 51% share of Gamesworld and Kevin has since led the growth of the business, which now has 60 stores throughout Ireland and England and is the number one video game retailer in Ireland. He is also an investor and mentor in young entrepreneurial companies. He was an early stage investor in Demonware, sold in 2007 to Activision, the largest video games publisher in the world, and in Jolt Online, which was sold to GameStop in 2009. Kevin holds an M Phil in Entrepreneurship and a degree in Administration and Marketing.
Mr Ralph MacDarby - Secretary
Ralph MacDarby is a Chartered Secretary (Fellow), Associate of the Institute of Taxation in Ireland, Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a former President of the Institute of Directors in Ireland and retired from the Council in June 2009. He acts as Company Secretary for the Institute of Directors in Ireland.
