Alan Foy is Chairman and Managing Partner of VentureWave Capital - a venture private equity investor that focuses on entrepreneurial companies with high impact potential. He has executed a fast-growth strategy and led the company’s expansion into new markets. Alan was previously an executive with one of Ireland’s leading investment firms, NCB Group (now Investec). He was previously Project Manager with the European Securities Network - a pan-EU alliance of investment banks.
He is also Chairman and former CEO of Blueface (a Comcast Business Company), member of the senior leadership team of Comcast, and Non-Executive Board Member of StarBlue and Star2Star. Alan was an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, is Chairman of the Ireland Funds in Ireland, a Board Member of Mount Temple Comprehensive School and a Past President of the Trinity Business Alumni.
He is a trustee of the Trinity Business Alumni and Board Member of the Provost’s Advisory Council for Trinity College. Alan is a member of YPO, a network of young CEOs with members in more than 130 countries. He is a board Member of Endeavor Ireland, a non-profit organisation setup to support high impact entrepreneurs. Alan holds a First Class degree in Business, M.A and M.LITT in Pan-European Strategies and Alliances from Trinity College Dublin.
William is a Founding Partner at Frontline Ventures. Frontline is an early-stage venture capital fund, with €250m under management and over 80 investments across Europe and the US. He was the youngest Partner of a European VC fund when Frontline was founded.
After leaving university, William was one of the founding employees of Ondra Partners, a start-up investment-banking boutique. Ondra grew from a four-person team, to have over 70 people in London, New York and Paris, and within 18 months was named top investment banking boutique globally by Euromoney. This experience made him realise his passion for rethinking an industry and led him to Co-Found Osmoda, a fashion e-commerce company creating a new way for young, up and coming designers to sell online.
At the same time, he was a Global Ambassador and Trustee for the Sandbox Network, a community of almost two thousand innovators under 30. It was through Osmoda and Sandbox that he saw the difficulties for great founders fundraising in Europe. This inspired him to join Will Prendergast and Shay Garvey to set up Frontline, a fund that would improve early-stage venture capital in Europe and enable him to support these entrepreneurs.
Elaine is a co-founder of Atlantic Bridge, a Global Technology Fund with over €1.2bn of Assets under Management which has investments in over 80 technology companies in Europe, US, and Asia, in cyber security, semiconductors, software, and medtech sectors. Elaine has 30 years of experience in the technology industry both as a founder, executive and investor scaling Irish and European technology companies, such as Movidius, Decawave, and successful IPOS for Parthus, Iona, and Smartforce. She was also a co-founder of Glonav, a GPS software and semiconductor company that was successfully acquired by NXP. Elaine is a board member of Enterprise Ireland, has been named one of Europe’s Top 50 Inspiring Women in Technology, and holds an MSc in Corporate Governance, is a qualified Chartered Director and is a member of the Institute of Directors.
Show more
Michelle brings over 30 years of combined operational and venture capital experience. This includes 20 years of venture capital investing early-stage companies as well as sales and marketing roles in both engineering and scientific industries.
Since 2010, she has led over 20 investments in her role at IAF. Notable investments include Maple, Figure1, Sampler, Nudge, tealbook and Profound Medical. Past exits include Cytochroma (acquired by OPKO), Rank (acquired by Arctic Wolf), Rubikloud (acquired by Kinaxis), Forbius (acquired by BMS) and Locationary (acquired by APPL). Prior to IAF, Michelle was a venture investor with VG Partners and Primaxis Technology Ventures. In 2017, Michelle co-founded and launched StandUp Ventures, a private seed-stage fund focused on investing in ventures led or co-led by women founders.
She is active in the technology community and is an advisor with Techstars, the Biomedical Zone at Ryerson, a volunteer with the Next 36 and CIX and an instructor in the entrepreneurship department at Ryerson University. Michelle also co-chairs the D&I Committee at the CVCA.
Michelle holds an MBA from McMaster University and a BASc (Chem Eng) from the University of Ottawa.
As Head of Social Policy at Ibec, Dr Kara McGann supports employers with strategic advice on labour market, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and wellbeing policy and practice. She also engages with national and European stakeholders to lobby on the broad area of social policy from gender pay gap reporting to labour market activation and represents business in various fora.
She is Chair of the Joint Equality Council at ESB; a Board Member of the Governing Authority of DCU, a member of the External Group of Experts of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) and a member of the Labour Market Advisory Council.
Prior to joining Ibec in 2008, Kara held roles in industry as a Career Development Manager, Organisational Psychologist, and lectured at undergraduate, postgraduate and executive level. Kara holds a PhD in Psychology, MA in Organisational Psychology, and MBS in Management and Organisation Studies from University College Dublin.
Jackie previously served as Chief Operating Officer at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Ottawa, Canada office of a leading international public affairs and strategic communications consulting firm. Jackie’s experience includes leading and managing multiple, complex national and international client files, and counselling officials, boards, and senior executives in almost every sector and industry in the Canadian economy on national and international issues and opportunities. She holds a BA in Psychology from Carleton University.
Show more