Aisling is Senior Executive with Financial Services Ireland. Financial Services Ireland (FSI) is the Ibec group representing the full spectrum of the financial services industry in Ireland. FSI represents 160+ members across banking, insurance, fintech, fund administration, investment management, and aircraft leasing, focusing on competitiveness, lobbying, and sector growth. In FSI, she works on inclusion, an Irish UK financial services partnership and Savings and Investment Union.
Aisling was one of three women who developed Ireland’s Women in Finance charter and sits on the Charter Steering Group and Operations Group. She also practices as a psychotherapist in a queer therapy centre and is a qualified coach.
Caroline McGrotty is a passionate advocate for accessibility, equality, and inclusive workplaces. She holds qualifications in Deaf Studies, Equality Studies, Irish Sign Language Teaching and recently completed a Master’s by Research in Deaf Education.
Caroline has worked with the Deaf and disability community for over 18 years. She is currently working at ESB as their Access Officer and Accessibility Specialist providing advice and guidance to both customers and employees with disabilities alongside teams across ESB.
Before joining ESB, Caroline worked with AHEAD, where she held several key roles including Project Officer, Coordinator, and ultimately Employment Manager as part of the Senior Leadership Team. Her work focused on supporting employers to create inclusive workplaces through inclusive recruitment practices, staff training, and the development of best-practice guidance on disability inclusion in the workplace.
She also previously held roles such as the Chairperson of the Sign Language Interpreting Service, Deaf Village Ireland, and the Irish Deaf Youth Association, amongst other roles at several other Deaf organisations.
Dara Ryder is Chief Executive Officer of AHEAD, an Irish NGO establish in 1988 which is dedicated to creating inclusive environments for people with disabilities in education and employment. He became CEO in 2020 having previously managed AHEAD’s digital presence and developed a suite of online CPD programmes relating to Universal Design and disability inclusive practice in his role as Digital Media and eLearning Manager there. This included co-leading the development of a national Universal Design for Learning (UDL) badge programme with colleagues in University College Dublin, a 10-week programme which has now been taken by over 5,000 educators. In recent years, he played a leading role in the cross sectoral collaboration to develop ALTITUDE – the National Charter for Universal Design in Tertiary Education, and was the project lead in the development of the national Widening Inclusion of Disablity in Employment (WIDE) Framework.
In 2024, Dara was recognised for his work in promoting the UDL framework internationally by US based organisation CAST, who awarded him the inaugural UDL Innovative Practice Award at a ceremony in California.
Dara’s research interests include examining the participation rates of students with disabilities in higher education, exploring the learning experiences of disabled students, examining the implementation of Universal Design and UDL in policy and practice, and exploring barriers and enablers to the recruitment and workplace inclusion of disabled employees.
After graduating from Queens University in 2005, Dara joined Dun Laoghaire College of Further Education as a lecturer, where he became interested in inclusive education when working first-hand with disabled students in his classroom. When the opportunity arose in 2008, he joined AHEAD where he has been working ever since on creating inclusive environments in education and employment for people with disabilities.
“Gender balance, diversity and inclusion are key to the competitiveness and growth of Irish business and to developing the workforce of the future.”
Head of Skills and Social Policy acts as strategic advisor and support on diversity and inclusion, skills and labour market policy and practices to Ibec member organisations across multiple sectors. Role includes lobbying and developing policy positions at a national and European level, developing tools and guidelines, and representing business at stakeholder forums across the breadth of skills and social policy issues from gender pay gap reporting and human rights to labour market activation and immigration. With Ibec since 2008, specialist in strategy development and implementation, public and regulatory policy, business representation and stakeholder engagement.
She is the Chair of the Employment Working Group of Business Europe, a member of the External Group of Experts of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU), a member of the Labour Market Advisory Council and Board member of the Open Doors Initiative. An organisational psychologist, formerly HR manager in industry with lecturing experience at undergraduate, postgraduate and executive level.
Michelle is a managing director at Accenture, and executive sponsor for inclusion and diversity at Accenture in Ireland. For over 30 years, Michelle has worked at the intersection of technology and humanities. She is a strong advocate for diversity and co-founder of Accenture’s Women on Walls initiative which seeks to make women leaders visible through a series of commissioned portraits to inspire future generations.
Michelle has been a member of the Ibec Diversity Forum for a number of years. She serves on the Board of Governors and Guardians of the National Gallery of Ireland. Michelle was named Woman of the Year at the 2018 Women in IT Awards and is a DCU Alumni Achievement honouree.
Siobhán is the ED&I Policy Lead in the Public Service Workforce Division at DPER, where she leads the development of inclusive workforce policies that strengthen diversity, equity and representation across the civil service.
Before joining the Department, she served as Head of ED&I at Publicjobs, driving initiatives to embed inclusive and equitable recruitment practices, broadening access to public service careers.
Siobhán returned to Dublin in 2021 following two decades in London’s non-profit and public sectors, where her work spanned education and youth inclusion, social policy, violence reduction, and progressive ED&I reforms for the Mayor of London.
She holds a Master’s in Ethnic and Racial Studies from Trinity College Dublin and sits on the Board of Black & Irish.