By Business & Finance 
Over the coming weeks, and ahead of the Business & Finance Awards 2017 – in association with KPMG – we are highlighting 50 outstanding tech entrepreneurs shaping the Irish technology landscape. Here, we feature Sean O’Sullivan, Marc Murphy, Jules Coleman, Brian Conlon and Colm Piercy.
Click here to view more exceptional tech entrepreneurs to make the list.
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Marc Murphy
Founder and CEO of Fenergo, Marc Murphy is responsible for the business operational strategy and corporate direction of the company.
With 18 years’ experience developing, selling and delivering enterprise financial technology to global banks, Murphy has developed a proven track record of building successful business winning and leadership teams.
In 2015, he led an $85m funding round with Insight Venture Partners and Aquiline Capital Partners, marking the second fundraising effort for the company.
In 2013, Fenergo secured €4m funding from Investec Ventures.
He is a software engineering and MBA graduate of Dublin City University.
Colm Piercy
Experienced investor, founder and CEO in data centre, digital infrastructure and telecom ventures.
He has a track record for quick investment decisions, successful M&A and has invested in high-growth companies, special situations, and commercial real estate throughout Europe and the USA.
Piercy continues to be the majority shareholder at Digiweb, which has an active pipeline of further acquisitions under development and is periodically recognised by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards where it has featured in the top three many times. More recently, Piercy has become an active seed investor in a number of early stage Irish businesses and continues to seek further opportunities in Ireland and beyond.
Brian Conlon
Chief Executive Officer at First Derivatives Brian Conlon has worked in the capital markets sector since 1990. Conlon trained with KPMG before joining the risk management team in Morgan Stanley International, London.
He joined SunGard the NASDAQ-quoted derivatives software house as a capital markets consultant.
During his time with SunGard, he worked with more than 60 financial institutions worldwide. He left in 1996 to set up First Derivatives.
Jules Coleman
Jules Coleman is a serial entrepreneur based in London. Currently she is the founder and CTO of BuildPath, the UK’s first online architectural platform. Previously, Coleman founded and sold Hassle.com.
Founded by Coleman, Alex Depledge and Tom Nimmo, Hassle.com secured a €4.7m investment from European venture capital firm Accel Partners in April 2014.
Coleman spent seven years in management consulting working for PwC, Accenture and IBM. In 2011 Coleman, quit her job, taught herself to code and built Hassle.com along with friends Alex Depledge and Tom Nimmo.
Sean O’Sullivan
Managing General Partner of SOSV, Sean O’Sullivan is a visionary entrepreneur and investor, and has created and supported a range of business, humanitarian and educational endeavours.
A major promoter of economic and social development, he founded JumpStart International in 2003. JumpStart was a leading humanitarian engineering organisation based in Baghdad and which operated throughout Iraq during the post-war period of 2003-2006.
O’Sullivan has also been a primary funder of organisations such as the Khan Academy, Mathletes and CoderDojo.
As Chairman of the Irish Entrepreneurship Forum and founder of Open Ireland, he is a leader and influencer of Irish government policy in fuelling economic growth and recovery in the Technology sector.
He holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production from the University of Southern California.
