Ahead of the launch of the CFO 100 in association with Friends First at The Merrion on Wednesday May 24th, we bring you the third instalment in a five-part series featuring the leading financial officers in Ireland.
Simon Henry / Three
Simon Henry has been Chief Financial Officer at Three Ireland since July 2012.
Previous to this appointment he was Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Head of Planning, Evaluations and Commercial Finance and Head of Finance Supply Logistics at the company.
He also served as Head of Corporate Project Accounting at H3G and holds a BSc in Economics and Accountancy from Loughborough University.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Ken Hickey / Microsoft
Ken Hickey as CFO of Microsoft Worldwide Operations.
Within the Microsoft organisation, he has served as Finance Director and Senior Director to Finance and Business Operations.
In his early career he was employed as Director of Financial Organisations at Hertz Europe and Business Finance Centre Manager at GE Capital EEF.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Lawrence Hickey / Digicel
Hickey joined Digicel in December 2002 as Financial Controller for the Jamaica operation before being appointed to the role of Finance Director (Jamaica) in August 2003. He was formally appointed to the role of Chief Financial Officer in March 2006.
Hickey qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG in 1994 and post-qualification, he joined Grafton Group, where he held the position of Group Management Accountant.
Prior to joining Digicel, he was the Finance Manager with Esat Telecom in Ireland, where he was responsible for all financial management and financial reporting requirements of Esat Telecom and played a key role in the consolidation of the company’s business and consumer divisions.
Iarla Hughes / IAC
Hughes joined IAC as Group CFO in September 2015 with over 12 years’ experience in senior financial management positions across EMEA and the Caribbean.
He began his career working for Cable & Wireless, the largest subsea fibre company in the world. He held a number of senior positions during a seven-year period starting out as the Financial Controller for the Ireland business and moving on to be the Finance Director of the Europe, Middle East and Asia enterprise Division.
He also acted as Finance Director for THUS, a UK consumer broadband business which Cable & Wireless purchased from Scottish Power in 2008.
In 2012 the Cable & Wireless Worldwide business was purchased by Vodafone with Iarla taking on a leading role with accountability for transitioning the EMEA, UK Mid Market and Ireland business into the Vodafone Group.
In 2014, he moved to the Caribbean as CFO for Digicel, the largest telecommunications provider in the region. Iarla had financial responsibility for the purchase and integration of West Indies Video (WIV), a high-speed broadband and Cable TV provider in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Pat Hunt / Schivo
Pat Hunt is Group CFO at Schivo, a manufacturer of high-precision machined components, fabrications and assemblies operates from facilities in Ireland and the UK.
Hunt has also acted as Managing/Operations Director and Finance Director at the company since 2007.
Prior to this, he was Financial Planning Manager at Waterford Crystal and Financial Accountant at Waters Technologies Ireland.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Rachel Izzard / Aer Lingus
Guest speaker at the event tonight, Rachel Izzard, has been Chief Financial Officer at Aer Lingus –part of International Airlines Group (IAG) – since October 2015.
A long-time employee of British Airways, Izzard joined the airline in 1996, heading the finance section of IAG’s cargo operation since 2013.
Following the IAG takeover of Aer Lingus in and the departure of former CFO Bernard Bot, she was appointed as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.
View her LinkedIn account here.
Marie Joyce / NTR
Marie Joyce is Chief Financial Officer of NTR plc. She joined NTR in 2004 and has held executive financial and commercial roles across the Group during this time, including Deputy CFO of NTR and CFO of Wind Capital Group.
Prior to NTR, she was Senior Director of Strategic Planning for Elan Corporation, where she played a pivotal role in that company’s $2bn financial restructuring and fundraising programme, and was previously an Audit and Corporate Finance Manager at Arthur Andersen.
Joyce is also currently Chair of the Make a Wish Foundation Ireland and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University College Galway, a Master’s in Accounting from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.
View her LinkedIn account here.
Peter Juhas / Aercap
Juhas was appointed Chief Financial Officer of AerCap in April 2017.
Prior to joining AerCap, Juhas was the Global Head of Strategic Planning at AIG, where he led the development of the company’s strategic and capital plans as well as mergers, acquisitions and other transactions, including the sale of ILFC to AerCap.
Prior to joining AIG in 2011, he served as Managing Director in the Investment Banking Division of Morgan Stanley from 2000 to 2011.
Previously, Juhas was an attorney in the Mergers and Acquisitions group at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, the New York law firm.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Stephen Kane / Communicorp
Stephen Kane is Chief Financial Officer of the Communicorp Group.
Founded in 1989 Communicorp operates a portfolio of media and radio assets in Ireland and Europe.
Previously, Stephen worked in the telecommunications sector for six years in a variety of CFO roles across Ireland, the Caribbean and Central America.
Kane is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ireland.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Andrew Keating / Bank of Ireland
Group CFO at Bank of Ireland Andrew Keating was appointed to the board in February 2012.
Keating was formerly Director of Group Finance, where he spearheaded a major transformation of the Finance Division in the Bank of Ireland Group.
He joined Bank of Ireland in 2004, prior to which he held a number of senior finance roles with Ulster Bank having qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen.
He is also a Director of Bristol & West, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Ireland.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Fraser Kennedy / Kennedy Wilson
Fraser Kennedy has 15 years of experience in real estate finance.
He is Head of Finance of Kennedy Wilson Europe, having joined in July 2015, leading the company’s finance team.
For the previous eight years, he worked at VALAD Europe, a European real estate investment manager, and for the last five years held the position of CFO for Europe.
Prior to this, Fraser worked at Legal and General Investment Management and Haysmacintyre.
View his LinkedIn account here.
David Killeen / Irish Life
David Killeen is Finance Director at Irish Life.
Since 2015, Killeen has provided oversight and leadership to finance functions in ILG, ensuring that all financial reporting by ILG complies with required standards, regulations and guidelines.
He also works with SLT to ensure that all business divisions have an appropriate and aligned strategy in place and delivers key strategic projects as required.
He holds a BAAF in Accounting from DCU.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Caitriona Kinsman / ESB Networks
Caitriona Kinsman has CFO at ESB Networks since 2010.
Previous to this she was Financial Strategy Manager at ESB International and General Manager at Synergen Power.
She holds an MBA from the Cranfield School on Management in Bedfordshire.
View her LinkedIn account here.
Ray Kirwan / DoneDeal
DoneDeal CFO Ray Kirwan is part of senior management team that developed the business from a startup and now works with the General Manager and board to shape the company strategy.
Kirwan has implemented an online accounting system and software, and rolled out functionality, overseen the roll-out of a ‘freemium’ service offering and directed a company-wide risk analysis project.
He also manages the Group’s financial reporting, tax clearance, purchasing, treasury and payroll.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Brian Lehane / Aon Ireland
Brian has 21 years’ experience in the insurance industry and is the CFO of Aon Insurance Managers (Dublin) with responsibility for internal finance and the client finance practice group.
Lehane obtained an Honours Degree in Economics from University College Cork. Following completion of his university degree, he qualified as a chartered accountant. In 2012 he completed the Institute of Directors Chartered Director programme.
He has significant experience in the establishment of insurance and reinsurance companies in Ireland and sits on the board of a number of client and Aon companies.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Stephen Loughman / Irish Life Health
Stephen Loughman is CFO at Irish Life Health, the newest health insurer in Ireland.
Loughman was a main founder of GloHealth, having also been part of the start-up team in Vivas Health, which entered the market in 2004, before being sold four years later to Hibernian, which itself was acquired by Aviva in 2009.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Gerard Lynch / MSL Motor Group
Gerard Lynch is Financial Controller at MSL Motor Group.
Lynch is a KPMG-trained chartered accountant with a wide range of corporate finance and accounting experience in the areas of financial reporting, audit, group consolidation, acquisition accounting and integration, financial planning and analysis, investment appraisal and financial modelling.
He specialises in merger and acquisition accounting and integration, financial planning and analysis, investment appraisal, management and financial modelling.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Darragh Lyons / Malin Corporation
Darragh Lyons is CFO at Malin Corporation, an organisation that creates shareholder value through the selective long-term application of capital and operational expertise.
Lyons is a chartered accountant and has worked in a number of senior finance positions in Elan, most recently serving as the Head of Group Finance (prior to the sale of Elan to Perrigo) where he was responsible for all aspects of internal and external reporting as well as overseeing the transactional and financing activities of the company.
Prior to joining Elan, Lyons worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dublin, the United States and Canada, and also served in the firm’s Global Technical Accounting Group.
View his LinkedIn account here.
Read more:
Aer Lingus CFO Rachel Izzard to be honoured among Ireland’s leading financial officers
Chief Financial Officer 100: A-C
Chief Financial Officer 100: D-G
Chief Finanical Officer 100: M-O
Chief Financial Officer 100: P-Z
