By Business & Finance 
Christine Heffernan, Group Communications Director, Tesco
Business & Finance highlights notable new appointments at Tesco, Sodexo Ireland and Bibby Financial Services Ireland.
Christine Heffernan, Group Communications Director
Tesco
Christine Heffernan will join the Executive Committee as Group Communications Director from 1 March 2019, replacing Jane Lawrie.
Christine has most recently worked as Executive Director to Group CEO Dave Lewis. Prior to that she spent five years as Director of Corporate Affairs in Tesco Ireland, as well as a board director and member of its senior leadership team. In these roles, she worked as part of a team transforming the Irish business and its communications to rebuild trust in the brand.
Christine has communications experience across a number of sectors including energy, telecoms and financial services. She has previously worked at the European Parliament and as a policy advisor at the Treasury in London. She has been a board member of Threshold, Ireland’s national housing charity, since 2013.
Julie Ennis, Managing Director of Corporate Services Division
Julie Ennis
Sodexo Ireland
Sodexo, an on-site services providers, has appointed Julie Ennis as managing director of Corporate Services, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Julie joins the company from Bank of Ireland, where she was the Head of its Mobile Sales Force for three years.
In her new role, Julie will be responsible for the management and strategic growth of Sodexo’s corporate services offering in Ireland and Northern Ireland, reporting into David Bailey, CEO of Corporate Services for the UK and Ireland. Within the corporate sector in Ireland, Sodexo works with clients in finance, pharma, technology and FMCG, including Ervia, Gas Networks Ireland, Bord Bia, Central Bank, PayPal, Dell and Microsoft.
Julie Ennis has held numerous senior roles in sales, product development, strategy and operations at the Bank of Ireland Group since 1998. She was a Group Sponsor of Bank of Ireland’s Be At Your Best’ employee wellbeing programme and a committee member of its LGBT and Gender Balance networks. She is an MBA graduate of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and a National Council member of the Executive Institute.
Stephen McCarthy, Head of Sales for Munster
Bibby Financial Services Ireland
Stephen McCarthy
Bibby Financial Services Ireland (BFSI), a provider of funding solutions to Irish SMEs, has appointed Stephen McCarthy as their new Head of Sales for Munster.
In his new role, Stephen will lead the growing Munster sales team at BFSI as the operation strives to provide businesses across the country with bespoke financial assistance through a wide range of specialist and working capital funding options. The funding portfolio at BFSI includes confidential invoice discounting, factoring, export finance, foreign exchange services and specialist funding for a range of sectors.
Stephen joins BFSI from Close Brothers Commercial Finance, where he was Regional Director with responsibility for delivering innovative working capital and asset-based lending for SMEs across Munster. Prior to this he served as Senior Business Development Manager at Ulster Bank, where he led the SME team to deliver smart banking solutions to businesses across Cork and the wider Munster region.
He holds a B.Comm and Masters in Business Studies in Strategy and Competition from University College Cork.
