By Business & Finance 
The Business & Finance CIO 100 Index 2021, in association with Equinix, recognises the top 100 Chief Information Officers working across some of the most innovative companies in Ireland today.
The list was launched today at the CIO 100 Index 2021 webinar, where Maurice Mortell, Managing Director of Equinix, spoke about the importance of the CIO 100 Index and moderated an interactive discussion on the theme, ‘Digital Leaders – Driving Transformation’.
Joining the discussion were some of Ireland’s leading IT professionals, including: Ashling Cunningham, CIO, Ervia, Dermot Hennessy, Director of Infrastructure, Flutter Entertainment and Louise O’Conor, Founding Partner, Beta Digital.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Dave O’Donvan, Chief Digital & Information Officer,
Aer Lingus
Dave O’Donovan is the Chief Digital and Information Officer at Aer Lingus. He is a member of the Executive Management Committee of Aer Lingus, a €2bn revenue business (2019), and a member of the Management Committee of IAG Tech, the technology function supporting IAG, whose airlines also include British Airways, Iberia and Vueling. He is accountable for all technology across Aer Lingus, both from a Delivery and Run perspective; Lead the People Transformation workstream across IAG Tech, driving cultural and people transformation. O’Donovan is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in extracting business value from digital, data and technology across multiple industries and geographies as consultant, an entrepreneur, and a corporate leader.
Niall O’Dowd, IT Director,
Mason Hayes & Curran LLP
Niall O’Dowd is the IT Director for Mason Hayes & Curran LLP, a top tier Irish law firm. With over 25 years of technical and management experience in the IT industry, O’Dowd has a deep understanding of the IT commercial application of various platforms and systems. Since joining MHC in 2008 the firm has seen huge growth and O’Dowd has successfully managed this large scale expansion keeping pace with the leading IT industry standards and trends. He has been involved in numerous projects, infrastructure implementations and software upgrades across the IT enterprise environment. Key projects and areas of interest include Cybersecurity, AI, Business innovation through IT, and Enterprise cloud solutions.
Gerard O’Flaherty, Chief Information Officer,
Fexco Corporate Payments
Gerard O’Flaherty is the CIO at Fexco Corporate Payments, a division of the Fexco Group, who provide specialist payment processing services to enable clients to issue payments quickly, accurately, securely and cost-effectively. Leading a dynamic IT team in the FinTech industry, he has embarked on a number of large projects in Ireland, United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand over the years working with all the major banks and payment providers. These projects have delivered a wide range of payment products to a vast range of customers.
Tony O’Halloran, Global Group IT Director,
Total Produce
Tony O’Halloran is the Global Group IT Director for Total Produce, the world’s largest global Fresh Produce Company who are headquartered in Dublin. O’Halloran is responsible for the oversight of Total Produce Global IT Operations with a particular emphasis on Digital Transformation and has over 3 decades of experience working in the IT sector for multi-national companies operating in the IT, Financial Services and Fresh Produce sectors.
Tom O’Leary, Chief Information Officer,
Icon plc
Tom O’Leary is ICON’s Chief Information Officer and has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. O’Leary joined ICON in 2001 as Manager of Data Management and has held various leadership positions including, Global Head of Data Management and President of ICON Central Laboratories.
Prior to joining ICON, he worked for SmithKline Beecham and later GlaxoSmithKline and held positions in Data Management, Project Management and Resource Management. He holds a Degree in Medicinal Chemistry and a Masters in Data Management from Kingston University in Surrey and is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Matt Peterson, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer,
Aptiv
Matt Peterson is an accomplished IT Executive with a proven record of success in facilitating business growth through effective alignment of technology functions to meet business needs. Peterson is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Aptiv where he is responsible for global oversight of the Information Technology (IT), Global Business Services (GBS) and Critical Initiatives Delivery (Enterprise PMO) functions. He has an established reputation in technology leadership, strategic planning, and change management. He is adept at supporting mergers and acquisitions, performing business process design, and directing complete project management operations. Peterson is highly familiar with managing ERP and CRM deployments, eBusiness initiatives, and overseeing outsourcing/offshoring. He has CPIM and CIRM certifications and extensive leadership training.
John Petter, Chief Information Officer,
Zellis
John Petter is responsible for driving Zellis’ vision and purpose, and ensuring that we deliver on our commitments to our costumers, John joined Zellis from BT, where he was the CEO of the costumer experience at the business. His wealth of knowledge is now a key driver of Zellis’ success.
Pam Power, Head of Information Technology,
Ibec
Pam Power works as the Head of Information at Ibec, Ireland’s largest lobby and business representative group. Their purpose is to help build a better, sustainable future by influencing, supporting and delivering for business success. With over 250 employees, Ibec engages with key stakeholders in Ireland and internationally through their six regional offices and Brussels office, along with an extensive international network in the UK and US.
John Power, Senior Information Technologist,
National Broadband Ireland
John Power is a Senior Information Technologist with a proven track record of delivering value, revenue and transformational change at leadership level. Power has extensive experience in providing clear vision and strategy, and has a track record in the end-to-end delivery of software solutions across organisations including Vodafone (Middle East / Africa), T-Mobile (Europe / USA), Hutchison Whampoa / 3 / Three (Worldwide) and Inmarsat. Within Ireland, John has held positions with Enet and now National Broadband Ireland (NBI). His current NBI responsibilities include, overseeing the entire information technology real estate, specifically the BSS/OSS, ERP, PPM (Project Portfolio Mgt), Analytics, ICT and IT Operations, maintaining them according to established goals, standards and contractual requirements, as well as having full responsibility for the alignment of IT strategies to business strategies and desired outcomes.
Peter Quinn, Chief Information Officer,
DCC Plc
Peter has been Chief Information Officer since he joined DCC in 2004. He also spent three years as Chief Operating Officer of DCC’s largest oil distribution business, Certas Energy UK. Prior to joining DCC, Peter worked as an IT consultant with an international firm where he specialised in the delivery of complex IT solutions across a range of business sectors. He had previously worked in the food and transport industries in a variety of IT leadership roles.
Stephen Reidy, Chief Information Officer,
Three Ireland
Stephen is CIO at Three Ireland, which he joined in July 2014. He was previously Head of Strategy & Consulting at O2 Ireland for three years before it was acquired by Three’s parent company and worked in several senior roles at UK telecoms provider Orange between 2002 and 2011 in IT and programme management. Stephen is a UL Electronics graduate.
John Roche, VP of Technology,
Fenergo
John Roche is the current Vice President Platform and Innovation Officer at Fenergo. He has been in this position since May 2019 and is responsible for running the Platform Engineering teams of Fenergo’s flagship CLM Enterprise product. His teams focus on performance, scalability and observability of the application and also on the digital transformation activities to ensure they can continue to pivot the product towards a digital, omni channel consumer strategy.
This includes also running all of the organisations DevOps capabilities focussing on automation and deployment across on-premise and cloud infrastructures.
He has held leadership positions in technology services companies for many years, specialising in building and leading teams to deliver on key business outcomes with a focus on scale, durability, and high-performance. Roche has hands-on experience leading cross functional teams using different delivery methodologies.
Barry Roche, Chief Information Officer,
Concern Worldwide
Barry Roche is the Chief Information Officer at Concern Worldwide. He graduated from UCD with a degree in History and Politics in 1992, he subsequently completed a diploma in Public relations in DIT before moving to the US in 1994. After several years working in the financial services industry he returned to Ireland in 2003. Since then he has worked with Concern in numerous IT roles and became CIO in 2019. He recently completed a Diploma in Digital Leadership with the IMI”
Barry Rooney, Chief Information Officer,
Apex Group
Barry has 25 years’ experience working in the IT Industry in Ireland and holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics from DCU, and a Masters in Cloud Computing from CIT. Barry has held IT management roles in Siemens, Atos and Taxback Group, delivering solutions to Government and Finance industry. He has been CIO for the Apex Group for the last 5 years, and is responsible for all Infrastructure, cloud, security and support services in Apex.
During this time Apex Group has grown organically and through a series of transformative acquisitions, to become a global financial services provider represented by 5,000 employees across 50 offices worldwide. Apex now services assets of $1.5 trillion across administration, custody, depositary and under management, and has recently setup a digital bank for corporate and asset management clients.
Bob Savage, Chief Information Officer,
Dell Technologies
Bob Savage has worked for Dell Technologies for 31 years and started with the Company in 1988 as a product engineer. Over the last 3 decades he has held many different leadership roles in Dell Technologies including: Manufacturing, Engineering, Services and IT, & has been responsible for teams in Ireland, India, Egypt and the US.
He is a chartered Engineer & fellow of Irish Academy of Engineers. Savage is the former Chairman of Cork Institute of Technology and held the role of inaugural Chair of Munster Technological University from January to June of this year. He was a board member of The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland from 2013 to 2019 and took on the role of president throughout 2016.
Richard Schouten, Group Vice President Information Systems,
Smurfit Kappa
Richard Schouten is a solutions-driven IT Executive with 13+ years of success profitably managing multi million-euro IT organisations, infrastructures, and projects to meet evolving business, financial, and market demands of growth-oriented companies. He currently works as Group Vice President Information Systems at Smurfit Kappa. He has expertise in driving full lifecycle delivery of complex, 7- and 8-figure projects that transform IT infrastructures, automate processes, and yield measurable cost reductions, productivity gains, and revenue growth. Schouten is well-qualified with an MBA and M.S. in Electrical Engineering/Information Technology.
Shane Slattery, Chief Information Officer,
Dawn Meats Group
Shane Slattery, CIO Dawn Meats Group. Slattery worked internationally with KPMG for several years designing systems and process changes for their blue chip clients including Ray Ban Sunglasses, Heineken and Nalco Chemical Company (now Ecollab). He has almost 25 years’ experience as CIO of Dawn Meats Group which is one of Ireland’s largest food producers. The company operates in 12 countries, exports to over 50 countries, has over 7000 employees and a turnover which is in excess of €2Bn. A Master’s degree graduate of the Michael Smurfit Business college, he is also a certified Prince2 project practitioner, MsP practitioner and ITIL Expert.
Ray Snowdon, Chief Information Officer,
Microsoft
Beginning as a Management Consultant at PwC, IBM and then Accenture, Ray’s Microsoft journey began in 2006 as Global IT Operations Manager, moving his way up through the ranks in customer experience, operations, risk and compliance, advertising and now to his current role in business intelligence. Initially his path was in engineering, having obtained a BE and MEngSc from UCD.
Donal Sullivan, Chief Technology Officer,
Auxilion
Auxilion is a leading provider of digital, cloud and IT services throughout Ireland and the UK. Headquartered in Dublin, Auxilion
recently announced that it is creating an additional 110 jobs and will grow revenues from €40M to €60M in the next three years.
Donal has more than 25 years’ experience in providing leadership, consulting, IT advisory and project management services. He has been the CTO and the head of the business solutions team at Auxilion for the last 2 years. He also works with IT Regional Technical Colleges in a consultative capacity and supervises European research projects.
Donal has spent his career managing large scale technology-based programmes from inception through to production. In recent years, he has specialised in providing banking solutions for corporate and government customers, working with market leaders such as VISA and MasterCard. He is also regularly engaged by clients to assist them with their IT transformation and business change programmes.
Claudio Viotti, Head of Quantitive Development,
Aerlytix
Claudio Viotti is head of quantitative development in Aerlytix, a technology company that is leading the way in aviation finance technology. With technology and aviation finance central to Ireland’s future business success, Claudio is spearheading the efforts that are revolutionising an industry.
With a degree in aeronautical engineering and a PhD in mathematics from a prestigious US university, plus valuable years of experience in both academic research and commercial technology companies, Claudio was perfectly placed to lead the quantitative effort in this highly capital intensive, complex, yet technology starved industry.
Working closely with his team and clients, Claudio has advanced modelling capabilities using the latest world class technology in ways that the industry has never seen before. Claudio’s skills, vision and contribution to aviation finance technology are unrivalled in the sector.
Noelle Watts, Chief Information Technology Officer,
Ornua Co-operative Ltd
Noelle Watts is an experienced Chief Information Technology Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the Ingredients and dairy industry. Currently she works as part of the Ornua team and is skilled in Business Transformation, Business Process Design and technology enablement. She has a Masters in Digital Marketing from The Digital Marketing Institute and a Bachelor of Commerce from UCC. She has experience in IT strategy and change management.
Toby Wells, Chief Technology Officer,
Savills
Toby has 25 years experience in IT service delivery & management across the UK and Ireland. With a technical background in network, storage and security he moved into IT Management and has worked building & leading teams that deliver complex projects. Most recently he joined Savills Commercial Ireland (in 2016) to head up a digital transformation project that covers cloud & hybrid working, security and application delivery.
Peter West, Associate Director of Information Technology,
Alkermes, Inc
Experienced Associate Director of Information Technology with a demonstrated history of working in the biotechnology industry. Skilled in Microsoft Word, Databases, English, HTML, and Leadership. Strong information technology professional with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused in Business Administration and Management, General from Athlone Institute of Technology.
Derek Wilson, Group Chief Information Officer,
Origin Enterprises
Origin is a focused Agri-services group providing specialist on-farm agronomy, digital agricultural services and the supply of crop technologies and inputs. Derek Wilson leads Origin’s technology strategy, governance, shared services, transformation programs and data analytics across the EU, UK and LATAM markets. He has entrepreneurial P&L responsibility for Origin‘s SaaS B2B digital agriculture business and Origin’s AI/ML research partnership (CONSUS) with UCD that works to identify and implement innovative AgTech solutions. Wilson was previously Technology & E-Commerce Director of The Irish Times Group and Managing Director of Siemens Business Services. He also held senior positions with KPMG, Version 1 and JBA.
Business & Finance CIO 100 (alphabetical by surname):
View part one (A-F)
View part two (F-L)
View part three (L-O)
View part four (O-W)
