Judging panel

Sue O’Neill was previously Chair of the SFA and Managing Director of Shellcove, an Association Management Company (AMC), which she founded in 2004.
Shellcove provides outsourced management services to companies and associations. Services include: strategy; marketing; business/membership development and event management as well as administration support.

Sue’s experience also extends to working with the academic sector in connecting both SMEs and multinational organisations to drive innovation and collaborative research. In addition, she advises and mentors start-up companies.

​Prior to Shellcove, Sue founded Generation in 1993, a creative agency offering advertising, design and marketing services across a broad spectrum of clients.

Managing Director of Shellcove, an Association Management Company (AMC), which founded in 2004. Sue holds an MBA from Dublin City University, a Diploma in both Digital Marketing and Print Management and is a Graduate of the IMI Business Development Programme. She has previously served as a committee member of the Institute of Business Analysis & Consulting. She has been a member of the Small Firms Association since 1993 and has served on the council since 2004.

Frank Roche was the Deputy Principal of the UCD College of Business and Law.

He holds the Berber Family Chair of Entrepreneurship at the UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business and was recently appointed the Director of Entrepreneurial Strategy for UCD.

Brian O'Kane is Managing Director of Oak Tree Press, Ireland's leading business book publisher.

He is the author of many Irish business planning texts and lectures widely on business planning and strategy.

A chartered accountant, Brian was elected to the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in May 2007.

Tom is Professor of Entrepreneurship at Technological University Dublin and has published widely on the topic. He is an entrepreneurship policy advisor to governments, European Commission, OECD and other international organisations. He is also Director of four companies and a member or the Board of Skillnet Ireland.

Mairead Cirillo is an Environmental Management Consultant and provides an advisory and support service on all aspects of environmental issues as they affect business in the industrial, commercial and services sectors.

With 20 years experience her roles have included trainer and facilitator, EMS lead assessor, Project and Programme Manager, Evaluator and Environmental Business Advisor.

She has worked in over fifteen countries including Bulgaria, Spain, India, Norway and New Zealand.

Her company, Environmental Business Advice was set up in 2002.

adraig Sheerin is Head of SME at Three Ireland and has 22 years experience in the telecommunications and ICT industry having previously held roles in O2 and eircom. At Three he is responsible for all sales and relationship management across multiple channels. Padraig holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management from the Irish Management Institute.

Three Ireland is Ireland’s largest telecommunications provider and to date has invested close to €2billion building its business in Ireland. The company has over 1,400 employees throughout Ireland with its head office in Dublin and an award-winning contact centre in Limerick.

Dr. Ken Germaine is a self-employed entrepreneur, management consultant, business advisor, trainer and mentor.

Ken helps entrepreneurs to assess the viability of and start their new ventures. This includes guiding the entrepreneur to clearly identify their market and competitive advantages which will allow the new venture to build their client base in a shorter time span than otherwise. He assists the entrepreneur to ensure that their business idea makes them money and achieve a rate of return on their investment. Ken runs a series of business planning programmes where participants actually write their business plans on the programme.

Ken Germaine is founder of Germaine Business Planning (www.germaine.eu.com) and is a fellow and past President of the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisers (IMCA, Ireland) and is a member of the Independent Advisers and Consultants Group (ICAG) within the Institute, of which Ken is a former Chairperson. He was Chief Executive Officer of the BASE Enterprise Centre, a nonprofit community-based enterprise centre and registered charity in Dublin Ireland for over 9 years up to February 2010.

Ken is an experienced trainer and has written several reports, evaluations and business plans for programmes, businesses and social enterprises. Ken holds a B.A. (Hons) in politics and economics, as well as, an M.A. in political science from University College Dublin (UCD) and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin on community-based social enterprises in Ireland within economic geography.

Deputy Business Editor at Irish Independent where he covers a range of topics including banking, markets, economics, corporate finance and SMEs. He began his journalism career more than 25 years ago and has worked across several national outlets in print, digital and broadcast formats. Jon also spent six years as head of communications for Goodbody.

Geraldine is a founding director of 3rd i IT and Business Services Ltd, which helps its clients to develop and grow their businesses through providing them with strategic insight and implementation tools. As well as providing consultancy and training services, 3rd i also develop web based software solutions in-house, including Actravia, an Events and Training Management System, and AIMS, an Awards, Certification and Accreditation Management System.

The main focus of Geraldine’s work to date has been with business support and policy organisations including County Enterprise Boards, FÁS, a number of Skillnets and Forfás, and SMEs at the growth stage of their development. She has also lectured in a number of third level institutions, including UCD, DCU, DIT, NUI, Maynooth, the Dublin Business School, CIRD (Haikou, China), APMI (Hong Kong and Singapore) and CESUGA (Spain).

Geraldine was co-opted as a member of the Small Firms Association’s National Executive Council in March 2009. She is also a member of the Ballymun Economic Development Working Group and a former President of the Institute of Business Analysis and Consulting. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Masters in Business Studies from UCD, as well as a postgraduate Certificate in Training and Continuing Education from NUI, Maynooth.