A vital part of any accelerator is the mentoring that the founders receive.  With the Propeller Venture Accelerator we have tapped into one of the great benefits of doing a start-up: the access to senior corporate management, techies, specialists as well as serial entrepreneurs.

Some of the Ryan Academy Mentors include:

Ivan Mac Donald - CEO - Dial2Do

Ivan has been founder/CEO of a couple of startups.  He founded eWare, a Saas CRM company that he built to profitability with 70 employees in Ireland and 400 customers in the US, Europe and Asia.  Ivan sold the company and it is now part of Sage Group PLC.  Ivan is currently CEO of Dial2Do a hosted voice recognition startup that partners with consumer device manufacturers, and is non-exec director of a couple of other startup and early stage companies.

Peppe Santoro – Venture Legal Services 

Peppe is an experienced corporate lawyer with 15 years’ experience in Ireland and abroad. He has advised companies ranging from large US and European multinationals to innovative high growth startups. Having worked previously with two of Ireland’s largest law firms, Peppe established Venture Legal Services in 2011 to develop a differentiated legal offering for Irish clients with a particular focus on the startup and high growth communities. Peppe has lectured extensively in the business and legal sectors and he is pioneering alternative service models in legal services. He advises companies on all aspects of their growth and fundraising (from VCs as well as angel investors) as well as on commercial partnerships and tax and corporate structuring. He has served on the boards of many client companies over the years and actively contributes to the startup ecosystem in Ireland. He is also an Irish and European trade mark agent with extensive experience of intellectual property development and exploitation models. He is online at www.venturelaw.ie and can also be found on LinkedIn and on Twitter

Theo Lynn Director- LINK Research Centre at DCU Business School

Theo Lynn is the Director of Industry Engagement and the Director of the LINK Research Centre at DCU Business School. While completing his Masters in Business Studies (MIS) at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, Theo founded Enki Information Systems, a business information services provider, which was later acquired by Rochford Brady Group. In 1997, he established Educational Multimedia Group (EMG), an international e-learning provider and recipient of the 02 Elearning Company of the Year, which was subsequently acquired by Intuition Group. After leaving EMG in 2002, Theo advised a number of Irish an international companies and held the position of Director of Strategic Development at UK elearning company, Digitalbrain PLC. In 2005, he founded Atomic Assets, an online digital asset management service provider, the main business of which was acquired by Cambridge University Press in 2007. Theo has lectured in both the Graduate School of Business and School of Law at UCD in Information Systems and Design and Corporate Finance Law respectively. He joined DCU Business School in 2006 where he occasionally lectures in strategy for digital businesses and digital marketing.

Karl Power

Karl has 25 years experience in the Investment Industry, both as an investment manager and in institutional sales. He currently serves as CEO/Co-Founder of Synthium Capital and also Active In-Home Therapy.

Karl has spent the last number of years as a consultant to companies in the internet, airline, technology and professional sports industries in the U.S., Mexico and the U.K.  Previously he was hired as a partner at a technology investment bank, Robertson Stephens LLC, to help launch their London office. He helped grow their business to $100m over a five year-period, whilst heading up their Institutional Sales effort.

He also worked at Allied Irish investment Bank as Head of Global Equity Investments and as a Senior Sales Executive for Paine Webber and Merrill Lynch in both New York and London. Karl holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Masters in Business Studies from University College Dublin, in Ireland, and an AMA from the Institute of Management Accountants in London.

Peter Smith - Founder, Provience Five Networks - Founder, RedMere

Peter Smyth is a veteran of technology businesses, with more than 25 year’s Strategy, Business Development, Product Marketing and Sales experience in Consumer Electronics, Semiconductors, Semiconductor Intellectual Property and Electronics Systems markets. Most recently Founder and CEO of RedMere, growing the business from zero to >1Mu shipped in 2011 (including fundraising, product development and operations in Ireland, North America and China).

Peter is the founder of RedMere and he led the company as CEO until August 2011, when he became Chairman of the Board. Prior to founding RedMere he held the position of VP Business Development for Ceva Inc.'s (Nasdaq: CEVA) Strategic Accounts and Wireline Communications Divisions, with worldwide responsibility for division revenues and product marketing, including Ceva's high-speed Wireline interface technologies. Over a career spanning 10 years at Ceva (previously Parthus Inc.), Peter also held positions as VP Product Marketing and VP Sales. Prior to working for Ceva in Ireland, he was Europe Manager for Taiwan-based Microtek International (DSD) based in Munich, Germany, and prior to that, he was Western Region Sales Manager for Microtek's operation in the United States, based in Portland, OR. Peter also held roles as Product Marketing Engineer and later as UK Sales Manager for Irish firm Ashling Microsystems, based in London. Out of college Peter was a Control Systems Design Engineer for Hyster Inc. Peter has a Bachelor of Electronic Engineering from Dublin City University, 1985.

Martin Casey - Managing Director - Arekibo

Martin is co-founder and Managing Director of Arekibo, a digital media company dedicated to helping organisations understand and maximise the true potential of digital communications. Arekibo has 5 divisions, Arekibo Digital one of Ireland’s largest digital media agencies, Arekibo Web delivering web design and development services, FirstPageon providing search engine optimisation strategy, Arekibo Mobile an app and mobile consultancy and ArekiboVentures a seed capital fund.  Arekibo’s team blends creativity and technology to deliver intelligent and innovative solutions to publically listed corporations, the public sector, startups and SMEs.  Prior to co-founding Arekibo, Martin was a co-founder of Zartis.com an ebusiness consultancy that was acquired in 2000 by the then Nasdaq listed Breakaway solutions.

Dermot Ferris -   Managing Director   -  Darkard (HK) Limited (t/a The Four Corners Company)

Dermot is a results-orientated Management Professional with an impressive track record of Profitable Growth and over 25 years of Senior Sales, Marketing, Logistics and General Management experience in both B2C and B2B.

Having established his Marketing credentials in First National Building Society and Avonmore Plc, Dermot moved to MARS / Masterfoods where, over the next 4 years, he managed the above-the-line and below-the-line marketing for their Petcare portfolio (PEDIGREE  CHUM / WHISKAS etc..).

Subsequently, he set up the MARS "New Business Development" division where, over the next 6 years, he designed, established and profitably grew many new channels, resulting in his appointment to the Management Team in 1999. The channels referenced included Food Service, Veterinary, Pet Trade, Vending, Pharmacy and Entertainment. In addition to this he managed the MARS Ice Cream business where he initiated and implemented a radical reorganisation of the total distribution network which remains in place to today.

Dermot moved to Unilever Plc. where he was also appointed to the Board of Management. In addition to holding the position of "Managing Director" of Lyons Tea and McDonnells Foods, he held the "Business Unit Director" role for all its non-frozen products. This role involved the management of Sales, Marketing, R&D and Production.

Dermot subsequently moved to Mellstock  Ltd, an SME on the acquisition trail, funded by the The Gowan Group and ACT Venture Capital. This B2B company sourced home wares in Asia for the major retailers in Ireland and the UK.

Ultimately Dermot established and currently runs his own "Start-UP" company (www.t-fcc.com) in Hong Kong sourcing a wide range of products across Asia and America for customers in Ireland and the UK.

Dermot's proactive leadership and change management skills have therefore been gained across a wide range of industries within the Corporate, SME and Start-Up sectors.  In addition to this, Dermot has extensive Irish, European and Global experience and of particular interest must be his more recent 10 years trading in Asia where he has built up an extensive network of Sourcing, HR, Accounting and Supply Chain contacts.

Dermot holds a degree in Economics and a post-graduate degree in Marketing.          

Tadhg O'Toole

As a founder, Tadhg has 15 years Director level experience in number of direct to consumer online/telecoms based businesses. Tadhg has held positions including, Managing Director, Marketing Director, Director of Legal & Regulatory Affairs and Finance Director. Tadhg has a particular interest in lean launches and developing and testing revenue models for new online products. For 10 years, Tadhg has been working with mobile operators and using 'pay by phone' technologies. He is a founding member and Chairman of the Irish Phone-Paid Services Association.  Tadhg also served as a Director on the Board of ALTO, the trade body representing Alternative Telecommunications Operators in Ireland. Tadhg is a Partner/Investor with Bloom Equity and invests in and advises a number of internationally focused, early stage companies.

Sean O'Neill

Sean holds a B.Sc.(Hons) and M.Eng. (1st Hons) in Electronic Systems Design from the University of Limerick and a Diploma in Management for Engineers and Scientists from Trinity College Dublin. He managed the Machine Vision Centre in Trinity College from 1987 to 1996 located between the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electronic and Microelectronic Engineering as part of AMT (Advanced Manufacturing Technology) programme which was part of the EOLAS (now Enterprise Ireland) Programme for Advanced Technology (PAT). In 1996, Sean acquired the IP and all rights of the Machine Vision Centre and formed a company called MV Technology Ltd. The company grew rapidly and was sold in 2001 to Agilent, a US multinational. Since then Sean has been an angel investor in a number of high technology start up companies in Ireland and abroad.

John Canacott – Entrepreneur

John is a seasoned serial entrepreneur and Managing Director of Publicis D, part of the Publicis the Worldwide Sales and Marketing Services Agency. There he heads up a team of 30+ working with National and International brands developing and implementing sales and marketing programmes for companies like BSkyB, Renault, Heineken , Ulster Bank and a range of pharmaceutical clients. John has created and developed several companies from a startup-phase, and then divested and integrated these companies into large and/or multinational operations. An MBA holder from Durham University where he is also working towards a Doctorate on Integrated Sales and Marketing with an emphasis on the digital area, John is a highly driven and goal oriented individual with excellent strategic and management skills. John has lectured extensively and also regularly contributes to industry and business publications.

Kevin Hanson – ICT & Venture Capital Executive

Kevin recently retired from the financial services industry after a career spanning 35 years. He spent 10 years working in ICT in various technical and management roles and another decade working in venture capital and corporate finance. He has a strong record of success and achievement.  He worked for 8-9 years with ESB on major engineering projects in Ireland and consultancy contracts in the Middle East.  His early career was with Bell Canada as a systems engineer.  He has strong business acumen and many years’ experience of ICT and power systems & telecommunications planning.    Over his career he has managed and developed large specialist teams and he has extensive program and project management skills.  He has been a Director of a number of high growth companies and helped them develop their strategic agenda and realise their full commercial potential. He has written several technical papers and chaired various power system committees and working groups. Kevin is an electrical engineer with a Masters in Business Administration.

Conor Stanley 

Conor was previously founder and CEO of Clearscape, a leading Irish Digital Media agency which was acquired in 2009. He is a founding board member and investor in Icap media, which provides the 02 Treats service to Telefonica 02 Ireland and was the lead investor in Jolt Online Gaming which was acquired by Gamestop Corporation in 2010.  Other recent seed investments include software provider Visible Thread and online music channel Balcony TV. Currently seeking hands on investment opportunities in early stage Internet, social media and gaming companies.

Ken Fitzpatrick - CEO - Simply Zesty

Ken has almost 20 years experience working in the internet, software and financial services industries.  Ken has been CEO of Simply Zesty since November 2010. Simply Zesty is Ireland’s largest social media marketing agency with a host of Irish and International Blue Chip clients such as Vodafone, Sony, Teradata, Ebookers, News International and Irish Distillers.

In 2008 he established his own management consultancy practice where he has advised a number of domestic and international companies/investors ranging from SME's to Large companies. While running his consultancy business, Ken took an executive position as CEO of Weddingsonline.ie - Ireland's largest weddings marketing business - for a year from Nov 2009 to end Oct 2010

From 2000 to 2008, Ken worked with Saongroup.com. Saongroup.com own market-leading recruitment websites and recruitment software companies in over 20 countries across 4 continents.  Ken began with Saongroup.com as Marketing Director with Irishjobs.ie (2000-2003) developing it into the largest recruitment website brand in Ireland. He then moved on to become Managing Director of their start-up software business, Candidate Manager (2003-2006), establishing this as Number one in Ireland and successfully launching it into the UK and US markets.

Ken was Group Chief Executive of Saongroup.com (2006-2008) and was responsible for spearheading the International development of the group. During his tenure the business completed 9 acquisitions, 5 start-ups and entered 7 new markets. The business grew over 150% during this time and had over 1,000 staff.  Prior to this, Ken held various Marketing Manager positions with Irish Life (a leading financial services provider in Ireland).  Ken holds a Bachelor of Business Studies Degree (First Class Honours) from Dublin City University.

Dylan Collins - Executive Chairman of Fight My Monster

Flight My Monster (www.FightMyMonster.com), the leading online game for boys in Europe. He is also an investor in Eventasaurus (www.Eventasaur.us), the online dashboard for event managers. Dylan is one of the most experienced online gaming entrepreneurs in Europe, building three companies with three successful exits over the last decade. 

In 2007 Dylan founded Jolt Online Gaming, which became one of the pioneering social games publishers in Europe. Jolt successfully launched a range of free-to-play games on browser and Facebook including Championship Manager, Legends of Zork, Utopia Kingdoms and Playboy Party. The company was the first to attract major licenses into the social games space, signing deals with Eidos, Playboy and several others. Jolt was acquired by GameStop (NYSE: GME), the largest video games retailer in the world in 2009 to spearhead their digital media strategy. 

As founder and CEO of DemonWare in 2003, he led the company to become the leading online games technology firm in the global console games market. DemonWare technology was used to connect millions of players on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles in some of the biggest games in the world such as Call of Duty, Splinter Cell, Guitar Hero and many others. In 2007, DemonWare was acquired by Activision Blizzard (NYSE: ATVI), the world’s biggest video games publisher.

Dylan’s first company, Phorest (launched in 2000), was one of Ireland’s leading mobile messaging (SMS) companies. Providing a range of SMS products and services to the small business sector, the company enjoyed rapid growth. In 2002, Phorest was acquired by MBO and is still a major player in the sector.

Dylan advises several startups and more mature companies in Europe and North America on strategy and M&A matters. He blogs at www.dylancollins.com and can also be found on Twitter as @MrDylanCollins.

Bernie Cullinan - CEO of Clarigen

A company providing a full HR Solution for companies in the SME sector. 

Bernie is a creative and energetic leader and has been involved in the software sector for a number of years in both executive and non executive director roles.

Prior to this, Bernie was CEO of SteelTrace, an Irish company which was very successfully sold to Compuware Corporation in Detroit. Prior to SteelTrace, Bernie was COO of Performix Technologies for five years. Performix Technologies product focused on people performance management, a closely allied domain to Clarigen.

Bernie is currently Chairman of TunePresto, which provides an online music creation tool, and is on the Board of Science Foundation Ireland. Bernie was a past Chairman of the Irish Software Association, the representative body of the technology sector in Ireland and a former ROI President of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.  In addition, Bernie has had many challenging roles driving business turnaround and then growth within organisations with difficulty meeting their goals and objectives in Ireland, the UK and Australia.

Bernie has a BComm from UCD, an MBA from UCD and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.  She is a past President of CIMA and a member of the DCU Educational Trust.

Martin McMahon - Seriel Entrepeneur

Having qualified from UCD as a Chemical Engineer, Martin worked in the Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical, Food, Engineering and Technology Sectors.  Following the award of an MBA, Martin created a start-up business, providing Facility and Property Management Services to a range of blue chip companies and public sector organizations.

Attracting Private Equity funding into the business allowed the new start up to achieve rapid organic growth, achieving revenues of c.€25 million without reliance on acquisitions and was a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.  Four years after starting, Martin sold the business to a PLC for a valuation of €22 million. Remaining responsible for the business, the business was taken public on both the UK and Irish Stockmarkets and a market capitalization of over €100million was reached.  A series of acquisitions were undertaken in Ireland and the UK, with the objective of achieving scale in an increasingly competitive marketplace, leading to an eventual sale of the business to a US multinational in 2009.

Frank Hannigan - Chairman - Goshido

Frank has over 25 years experience in Media and Technology.  Starting his career in traditional media, Frank worked with Kompass, Hot Press, Sunday Tribune and Examiner Publications.  He joined Ireland-On-Line following its acquisitions by An Post and a career in technology followed with leadership roles at Net results, Digiserve and Yougetitback.  Frank has served on the boards of exciting Irish technology companies over the last decade.  Working over the same period with EBRD (European Bank of Reconstruction and Development) he has advised Governments and Businesses on growing revenues from technology.

Frank has extensive international experience bringing start ups and established companies to international markets.  Frank is a Business graduate from trinity College and has been a guest lecturer in UCD, DCU, DIT, CIT, LIT, UCC speaking on topics from Media to Lean start up.   www.linkedin.com/in/hanniganfrank

Liam Mullaney - Managing Director- Sage Ireland

Before being appointed as Managing Director of Sage Ireland, Liam was Managing Director of Siemens Computer Systems in the UK. Prior to this position with Siemens Computer Systems UK, Liam spent three years working as a strategic management consultant for Siemens Computer Systems in Germany during which time he executed a number of key projects across Europe. Liam is also known for establishing the Siemens Nixdorf PC Business Centre in Ireland in 1993, which, by 1996 held 10% market share and ranked as the number three supplier in Ireland. Sage is a leading supplier of business management software and services to 6.2 million customers worldwide.

Patrick Brazel – Serial Entrepreneur

Patrick Brazel has over 25 years' experience working within the international finance and software industries and has been instrumental in the strategic growth and success of numerous software companies. He holds a Masters Degree in Management from Trinity College Dublin. After an early career in banking he joined Devon Systems, a leading global FX derivatives company prior to its acquisition by SunGard Data Systems Inc. He is also a founder of Sentry Financial Systems LLC, a provider of collateral management systems for the finance industry. From 2000 to 2003 Mr. Brazel was a member of the European Technology Advisory Group at leading private equity and venture capital firm Warburg Pincus. In 2001, he became Chairman and then CEO of Eontec Limited – a leading Irish software company providing retail banking systems to major international financial institutions. In April 2004 Patrick led Eontec to conclude a successful $130 million acquisition by Siebel Systems, Inc., the leading provider of Customer Relationship Management systems.

John Hunt – Founder – Hunt Capital

John has over 20 years experience in commercial real estate lending (investment and development) with a variety of indigenous and foreign owned banks including the Industrial Credit Corporation, Bank of Scotland (Ireland), First Active (Head of Property Finance) and RBS in senior management roles. His primary geographical focus was Ireland and the UK together with some mainland European exposure. John has also acted as an internal mentor in a number of institutions. John established his own advisory consultancy in January 2008, which focuses primarily on property, banking relationships and renewable energy projects.

John Menton - Partner - Arthur Cox

John is the head of the Technology and Life Sciences Practice Group in the Arthur Cox Dublin office and gained his initial experience dealing with technology companies when he was in charge of the Arthur Cox New York Office for over three years from 1996 to 1999, working primarily with North American Corporations setting up operation in Ireland. He has advised clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to early-stage start-ups on a wide range of technology law issues, including venture capital financing transactions, software development and licensing agreements, commercialisation of Intellectual Property and establishment of an international technology business in Ireland. He also sits on the Board of Directors of a number of Irish subsidiaries of US Multinationals.

Maurice Mason – Partner – Irelandia Aviation

Maurice Mason is a partner in Irelandia Aviation, which he established in 2003 with Mr Declan Ryan, and of Kite Investments, which contains his personal investment portfolio. Irelandia Aviation is the world's leading developer of low cost airlines having developed airlines in Singapore, Australia and now Thailand with Tiger Airways, in Mexico with VivaAerobus and in the US with Allegiant Air. He acted as a director for both Allegiant and Tiger when they were floated on their respective stock exchanges and remains a director of VivaAerobus. Kite Investments is focused on developing high potential, early stage Irish enterprises with investments to date in EUMom (marketing), XS Direct (Irish/UK motor insurance) and Airvod (inflight entertainment systems). Maurice worked at Morgan Stanley & Co. International Limited from 1994 to 2002, last serving as a managing director in the aircraft group. Prior to that he worked at GPA Group Limited and Proctor & Gamble Limited. He holds a degree in Engineering from Trinity College Dublin.

Cathal Lane – Partner - Tomkins IP

Cathal is a highly experienced European patent attorney and is Deputy Managing Partner in Tomkins & Co. He has an extensive practice before the European Patent Office and national practice in Ireland and the UK, including patent litigation, and his practice includes advice on all aspects of international IP protection. Now a Council member of EPI (the institute which governs European Patent Attorney matters) and former Chairperson of the Patent Laws Committee of the Irish Association of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys, Cathal has represented patent attorney views on patent practice matters and legislation changes. Cathal is a former speaker to the Orange County Patent Law Association, a regular lecturer to College students, tutor on European patent law and practice, contributor to the book 'New Venture Creation in Ireland' and conducts regular practical workshops on IP.

Ivan O'Dwyer – Alliances Manager - IBM

Ivan O'Dwyer works as Alliances Manager with IBM Software Group UK & Ireland, finding and helping ISV's work with IBM Corporation. Prior to this Ivan spent several years working with IBM Venture Capital Group based in Europe but working as part of the global team based in San Mateo, driving IBM's strategic venture model to leverage the best of external and internal innovation for IBM. This involved finding companies that fit IBM strategy and helping those VC Portfolio CEO's navigate and work with IBM more effectively. This work also involved driving new types of collaboration between IBM, its peer Corporate Venturing Entities, and IBM Clients/Partners in the marketplace. Previously Ivan worked as an Integration Sales Leader with IBM Global Technology Services and has 17 years of sales and business development experience in the Software and Services Sector in areas including systems/data management and security.

Dermot Grant - Managing Director – Origin Corporate Finance

Dermot Grant (dgrant@origincf.com ). Dermot is co-founder of Origin Corporate Finance and he has extensive experience in advising on merger, acquisition and sale transactions in most sectors including software, education, health, retail and distribution.   Dermot is principal partner  of Grant Reddy (dgrant@grantreddy.com), Chartered Certified Accountants founded in 1984.  He is a Chartered Certified Accountant, a member of the Institute of Taxation in Ireland and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

Liz Leavy - Founder - Liz Leavy & Associates

Liz Leavy is the Founder of Liz Leavy & Associates, Part of the Publicis D group with qualifications in Human Resources Management, Marketing and Sales. She recruits across all industry sectors specialising mainly in Information Technology and Telecommunications. She started her career in England recruiting in London City, mainly in the Financial Services sector. After five years, Liz returned to Dublin where she recruited for three years in the consumer and medical industries, moving then to Sales Placement Ltd where she has worked for the 16 years. Liz was appointed to General Manager of the organisation in 1997 and to Managing Director in 1999.

Liz has been involved with start up recruitment; training and development with multinationals' like Compaq/HP, Eircom and 3M, while also being instrumental in the launch and growth of successful on line and retail indigenous business'. With 20 years experience in total within the recruitment industry predominantly recruiting senior sales and marketing personnel and consulting on recruitment practice and development of sales training and policies, Liz can bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to your business.

Ron Immink – Serial Entrepreneur

Ron is a serial entrepreneur. He has started several, grown a few and sold one company. As an entrepreneur Ron has worked in entrepreneurship and SME development, training, consultancy, publishing, education, innovation and tech transfer across the globe. He is also author of a number of best selling business books. Currently he works in the area of social media, narrative, story telling, dialogue learning, collective wisom and social learning. The concepts he is involved with as CEO and co-founder, Bookbuzz and Smallbusinesscan are both in that space. Bookbuzz™ has developed a dialogue based methodology to improve your management teams decision making (faster, better) by harnessing and tapping the collective wisdom of the organisation and merging that with the best business minds, using inspiring business books. Amongst its clients are big financial institutions, professional services and consultancies in Europe. With the support of Ulster Bank he developed www.smallbusinesscan.com. A free and open platform where owner managers can tap into the collective wisdom of entrepreneurs and share the business knowledge, the insights, the experience and the contacts needed to generate new growth. Launched in May 2009, Smallbusinesscan is now the fastest growing business website in Ireland and is about to expand into the UK and further afield.

Paul Foley - CEO - DreamTec Software

In 1991, Paul started and built up the Croft Group of companies that were sold to ITG PLC in 2000. At the time of the exit, the group of companies had a turnover in access of €16m and a headcount of 50. One of the key success factors of the Croft Group was its ability to respond to market changes quickly and turn these changes into commercial customer propositions. He is currently CEO of DreamTec Software, they have created a platform that allows machines to communicate or exchange data in the B2B environment. He is an MBA graduate of UCD and has extensive experience in designing and selling technology solutions in the corporate market. He is Chairman of the Entrepreneur Skillnet in DCU Ryan Academy.

Kevin Graham – Vice President of Process Improvement – ICON Clinical Research

Kevin is currently Vice President of Process Improvement with ICON Clinical Research, a global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries and has more than 25 years of senior leadership experience in the global technology business. As Senior Executive with Accenture, Kevin led Accenture's European Shared Services and Global Procurement organization. He also ran Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) operations for a large European client. As Vice President and Managing Director with Oracle, Kevin led the development of a European Operations Centre encompassing Software Distribution, Development, Teleservices and e-Commerce.

As Chief Operating Officer with NewScope Group Holdings (a Swiss based Private Venture Capital company), Kevin was responsible for Business Development and Operations for a number of early stage technology & pharmaceutical companies.
Kevin holds an MBA from Santa Clara University and a First Class Honours degree in Engineering from Trinity College Dublin. Kevin also holds a BA in Maths from Trinity College Dublin.

Liam Ryan - Managing Director, SAP SSC (Ireland) Ltd

Liam Ryan joined SAP in 1999 as manager for the Remote Service Delivery Team in Active Global Support. He was appointed Managing Director of the Service & Support Centre in Ireland the following year. He has overseen the growth of SAP's operations in Ireland totaling over 1000 Employees in 29 Lines-of-Business in Citywest and Galway. Liam began his career in Germany working for Siemens in Amberg and Softlab AG in Munich. On returning to Ireland he worked as an Automation Engineer with APV and as Engineering Manager for Motorola before joining SAP. Liam holds a bachelor's degree in Electronic Engineering from DIT Kevin Street and Trinity College Dublin.

Fraser Heaslip – Head of Business Sales - eMobile

Fraser is Head of Business Sales for eMobile, the new mobile brand from the Eircom Group. Having worked within the group under the Meteor brand since 2005 in various business sales management roles Fraser has extensive B2B sales and sales management experience in Ireland's SME sector and understands professional sales processes in great detail. Prior to this he worked with Vodafone group for more than 6 years focusing on selling to government, enterprise and multinational corporation clients, in addition to having spent a short time on contract with Vodafone in The Netherlands in a number of strategy based roles. Fraser also has a great deal of retail sales experience from his 3 years with Coca Cola in a number of different sales positions. Fraser is a graduate of the Marketing Institute of Ireland in 1995.
ie.linkedin.com/in/fraserheaslip
www.twitter.com/fraserheaslip

Paul Williams – General Management – Information Technology

Paul recently retired from AIB after a career of nearly 40 years. He spent over 37 years working in IT in various technical and management roles. He has significant experience of team development and leadership, program and project management and governance, strategic expenditure appraisal and approval, service delivery and service level management and vendor selection and management. Throughout his career at AIB he has been at the forefront of technology development and has participated in and led many strategic technology development initiatives. His experience spans traditional technology and also includes the leadership of Web1.0 initiatives from both a technology and business model perspective.

Cathy Holahan - Senior China Market Advisor - Enterprise Ireland

As an electronic engineer and MBA graduate from Dublin City University, Cathy has worked in multinational companies, both in Ireland and abroad, in project, new products and global business management roles. In 2005 Cathy joined Enterprise Ireland to assist the commercialisation of academic research programs, and the generation of start up companies from higher education institutes in Ireland. In early 2008 the High Growth Markets group was formed within Enterprise Ireland, and Cathy's role is to support existing Irish companies in growing their Chinese exports, and also encouraging new companies to export to China. Cathy recently was awarded an MSc in International Business from University of Dublin (TCD).

Alumni Mentors

Paul Healy – CEO- Fantom & Serial Entrepreneur

Paul is the CEO of Fantom, one of the Propeller Year 1 companies. He is senior manager and innovator in web media. Formerly a journalist, he has over ten year's experience in Internet companies at a business and operations director level. This experience includes working on pan-European and global on-line recruitment projects for StepStone, JobFinder and JobUniverse, and business development for elearning companies EmergeSmart and Intuition. In 2000 he led the €10m trade sale of JobFinder.ie to StepStone as managing director and shareholder in Small Planet Ltd. At Intuition he was Business Leader of its Life Sciences business, a €2million turnover division.

Tom Byrne - CEO - HealthComms

Tom has over 20 years of industry experience in the application of information technology in Financial, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Software Development environments. Having worked in the British Columbia Cancer agency developing hospital information systems and working with researchers developing data models for breast cancer research Tom returned to Ireland with Intel. Over the next 14 years Tom was responsible for successively broader areas of responsibility with a focus on organizational redevelopment of both people and infrastructure with global responsibility for support of manufacturing IT infrastructure. In 2008 Tom moved to Vancouver to take up the position of Director of IT for Electronic Arts Canada where in Apr 2009 he became Director of global support for Electronic Arts. This position was responsible for consolidation of Desktop, Call centre and Infrastructure support organizations.

Paul Mooney - HealthComms

Paul’s professional career goes back almost 20 years in which he has worked in engineering, and IT. Paul has worked in IT management for about 10 years, both at local and global levels. Paul has a proven track record in managing and leading many complex projects with significant risk and capital/expense ($50m+) involved. Paul was a key player in two successive world record setting high technology startups with excellent results. As an Intel Global IT manager Paul was responsible for all Global Mobile Platform activities including design, engineering, business and solution deployment architecture of Intel's Mobile Hardware Platforms, Operating Systems and Build. The team was co-located in Ireland and the US and was made up of product managers and development engineers. We operated a Pay Per View business model with an annual turnover of about $15m.

For more details contact:
Terence Bowden, Venture Manager, Propeller Venture Accelerator.

Email: terence.bowden@ryanacademy.dcu.ie 

Tel: +353 1 7007763