By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Jennifer Farrelly, Finance Director, Pepper Advantage
There were new and notable appointments this week at Pepper Advantage, Young Social Innovators and Powerscourt.
Jennifer Farrelly, Finance Director,
Pepper Advantage
Pepper Advantage, the global credit intelligence company which employs over 500 people in Ireland, has announced the appointment of Jennifer Farrelly as Finance Director in Ireland.
Farrelly is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years’ experience as a finance professional working across a variety of industries. She started her career with Deloitte and subsequently held various finance roles in IWP International Plc, ESB and Bord Gáis Energy. As part of her role she is also a Director on the Board of Pepper in Ireland.
Farrelly joins Pepper Advantage Ireland from IPSI, a third-party administration company which was part of the Irish Life Group, and where she spent four years as Finance Director. During her time with IPSI, she was part of the team who negotiated the sale of IPSI by Irish Life to FNZ, a financial services technology firm and the subsequent integration of IPSI into the FNZ Group. She also spent over two years with AIB as Head of Finance Business Partners.
In Ireland Pepper Advantage is an established credit management firm and the largest residential mortgage servicer to banks and financial institutions, as well as international and Irish investors, servicing over 80,000 primarily performing loans in Ireland, across all asset classes, making it an integral part of the Irish financial services landscape and community. With operations in Shannon and Dublin, this year Assets Under Management in Ireland exceeded €25 bn for the first time on the back of a number of new mandate wins and the firm expects to create 100 new roles in 2022 and is actively recruiting.
Cormac Ryan, Chief Executive Officer, Pepper Advantage Ireland said, “We’re delighted to welcome Jennifer to Pepper Advantage Ireland. Jennifer brings with her a wealth of experience and a proven track record which will help us continue to grow our business in the coming years. I look forward to working with Jennifer alongside the wider Irish and global Pepper Advantage team as we continue to expand our presence and market share here in Ireland.”
In 2022 Pepper became ‘Pepper Advantage’ as part of a major global business transformation, under an ambitious plan to create a leading global credit intelligence company currently with over US$55 billion of assets under management, and 570,000 end-user customers.
Stephen O’Brien, Senior Consultant,
Powerscourt
Pictured: Stephen O’Brien, Senior Consultant, Powerscourt
Powerscourt, a strategic communications advisory firm, has announced the appointment of political journalist, Stephen O’Brien, as a senior consultant in its Dublin office. Stephen recently stood down after 20 years as Ireland political editor at The Sunday Times. Before that, he worked at the Irish Daily Star and at the Irish Independent.
Rory Godson, Chief Executive of Powerscourt, said: “We are delighted that Stephen has chosen Powerscourt for the next stage of his career. He is a man of vast experience, great judgement and unimpeachable integrity which has led to exceptional relationships across the political spectrum and throughout the public sector. In addition, he has a profound understanding of the media in Ireland.
“He will be a huge addition to Powerscourt where he joins a strong team in Dublin led by Eavan Gannon offering advice to both domestic clients and international companies looking for opportunities in Ireland.
“Powerscourt is going from strength to strength. Stephen’s appointment is the latest in a number of recent high-quality hires as we invest across the business to meet strong client demand. These include appointments in high growth areas such as ESG and sustainability communications, social media advisory and digital content production.”
Eavan Gannon, head of Powerscourt’s Ireland office, said: “Stephen’s is a key appointment and he will be a pillar of our practice as we continue to build a world-class firm helping Irish businesses, leaders and their ideas to be better understood by key audiences at home and abroad.”
Stephen O’Brien said: “Powerscourt feels like the perfect home for someone with my experience and it has a large team of sectoral experts in London as well as a brilliant team in Dublin. Its offer reminds me of my experience as a journalist, serving Ireland and the World.”
Roger Warnock, Chief Executive Officer,
Young Social Innovators
Roger Warnock has been appointed as the new CEO of Young Social Innovators (YSI), the not-for-profit that empowers young people to create innovative solutions to social challenges. The appointment was announced today by the Board of Young Social Innovators. Warnock will take up the role from outgoing CEO Rachel Collier in early January.
Warnock has over 20 years’ experience in social enterprise and social innovation, and a wide range of experience in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. A native of Belfast, his early career was shaped by working with a social enterprise based in Northern Ireland, and working voluntarily helping young people set up social enterprises through the Prince’s Trust business start-up programmes.
In 2013, Warnock took a secondment within the Northern Ireland Executive’s Department for the Economy where he wrote a social innovation strategy for Northern Ireland, ‘Harnessing the Power of Social innovation to Drive the Northern Ireland Economy’. This was later used by the Young Foundation, an internationally renowned social innovation think tank to set up operations in Northern Ireland. Warnock led the Young Foundation team in Ireland on its signature Amplify NI programme, accelerating over 45 social enterprises and social innovations between 2016 and 2018. He was also responsible for partnering with Belfast City Council on its innovative social innovation programme (2017-2018) and Credit Suisse designing the successful Amplify Youth programme (2018) that supported young social innovators in London, Dublin and Belfast.
In 2016, he was listed as one of the UK’s top 50 ‘New Radicals’ by Nesta and The Observer (2016). In addition, he was a Clore Social Leader Fellow (2016), a Churchill Fellow for social innovation and entrepreneurship in young people (2013), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a British Council Hammamet Fellow speaking on social innovation and ‘tech for good’ at the 2018 and 2019 Hammamet conferences in North Africa.
He will leave his role as Founder and Managing Director of The Zano Collective to take up the post with Young Social Innovators.
Announcing his appointment, Chair of the Board of Young Social Innovators, Gerry Fitzpatrick, said: “Roger brings over 20 years’ experience in social innovation and entrepreneurship and in creating transformative change through his roles providing effective leadership, innovative programme design and start-up support, as well as in advisory capacities within the non-profit, public and private sectors.
New and notable appointments at DLA Piper, Repak, Hume Brophy, PE Global and Connelly Partners
New and notable appointments at BLK BOX, Savills, Sidero and NDT Global
