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The Invest Northern Ireland Board represents the business community and education sectors, and is appointed by the Minister responsible for the Department for the Economy.
It is also responsible for ensuring the highest standards of corporate governance, efficiency and propriety in the use of public funds.
John Healy, Chair
John Healy OBE is a highly experienced senior executive with 30 years of experience in the technology sector, mostly gained in the financial service industry. He has extensive experience in leading global teams, developing strategy and delivering solutions to address business and technology issues.
He was the Managing Director of Allstate NI, where he served from January 2016 to December 2022. Before Allstate, John held the position of Service Centre Head for Citi’s near shore technology and operations centre in Belfast.
Most recently, John was Chair of the Software Alliance, the industry-led representative voice of the £1.7 billion software industry in Northern Ireland.
He serves on several boards including being Chair of the Fellowship Advisory Board at the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building, he is a member of the Council of Ulster University and is on the Board of Business in the Community. He is past-President of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce.
Colin Coffey
Colin’s professional career was within the Agri-Food sector where he held many senior Board positions with UK Companies.
Colin is an experienced Chair and currently holds a portfolio of Non-Executive Chair and Director positions in both the public and private sectors. These include Chair at the AgriFood & BioSciences Institute, Chair at the Public Health Agency, Non-Executive Director at Invest NI, where he is Chair of the Business Funding Committee and a member of the Audit & Risk Committee. He is also Chair at Natural World Products, an organics company targeting sustainable climate-focused solutions that will address key structural problems within Northern Ireland to deliver positive outcomes for our environment.
Colin has extensive experience of increasing shareholder value and better governance using a mix of leadership skills, practical experience, risk management as well as acting as a mentor to the board members. He is particularly interested in the development of leadership skills that will lead to more effective and sustainable organisations.
Colin is a Chartered Director and Fellow of the Institute of Directors and is an experienced assessor for the IoD in their Chartered Director programme.
Dominic Darby
Dominic has 25 years of experience in food retailing and manufacturing both in GB and NI. His previous roles include Head of Food Technology and Head of Innovation at Marks and Spencer in London and at Finnebrogue in Northern Ireland.
He has a BSc in Food Science, MSc in Agri Food Business Development and is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technology.
In his current role as Technical and Innovation Director for fast growing food to go manufacturer Around Noon Foods, he is responsible for the food safety and innovation strategies for five factories across NI and GB.
He has 12 years of experience as an Education Authority appointed Board of Governor for Brefne Integrated Nursery School.
Melanie Dawson
Melanie Dawson began her career in construction in 2004, later choosing to specialise in Building Information Modelling (BIM), digital construction and transformation for the last 10 years.
Melanie worked for a number of leading construction and consulting firms operating across Northern Ireland, UK and Ireland before choosing to establish her own digital construction consultancy business in August 2020, Origin7 Ltd. Melanie is a Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Melanie works with the Strategic Investment Board for Northern Ireland as an associate advisor and is a non-executive board member of BuildData Group who provide construction software and consulting.
She has a passion for digital transformation and improving productivity in construction through standardisation and applying a data-driven approach.
She holds no other public appointments.
Kieran Kennedy MBE
Kieran has over 40 years’ experience in the textile manufacturing and social enterprise sectors in key positions, most notably as Managing Director of O’Neills Irish International Sports Company Limited, before retiring in December 2021. Kieran is Chairman of Strabane Training Services and Chairman of Strabane BID, both voluntary positions.
In 2019 Kieran was awarded the Global Ireland Award for service to Irish enterprise by the Consulate General in Boston.
Kieran was appointed MBE in June 2021, for services to the economy during the pandemic, as a result of the pivot he made to scrubs manufacturing to support the Health Trusts in Northern Ireland.
In January 2022, Kieran was appointed a Member of the Governing Body of North West Regional College.
In July 2023 Kieran was recognised by the University of Ulster and received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science (DSc honoris causa) in recognition of his outstanding effort in building economic prosperity within the North West, together with an exceptional contribution to the wider NI Covid effort.
He does not hold any other public appointments.
Marie-Thérèse McGivern
Marie-Thérèse McGivern began her career as a teacher in further education. In the 1990s, she moved to develop policy for the youth service in Northern Ireland and in 1995 joined the Civil Service as a secondee to the Urban Regeneration Initiative, Making Belfast Work. In 1999 she joined the Belfast City Council as Director of Development.
In November 2009 Marie-Thérèse returned to further education and became Principal and Chief Executive of Belfast Metropolitan College, the biggest further education college in Northern Ireland. The College has a staff of 1,000 with 16,000 students. There she led a complete transformation of the College and has led a significant programme of improvement. She retired from the College at the end of March 2020.
Marie-Thérèse has recently been appointed the Chair of Maritime Belfast Trust and was Chair for the Employability and Skills Advisory Board for the £10b Belfast Region City Deal from January 2018 – June 2024. She is also a Non-Executive Director of the Strategic Investment Board for Northern Ireland (remunerated £11,110 per annum) and Northern Ireland Water (remuneration £18,000 per annum) and is also a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. She has a passion for transformation especially in the power of education and skills development to change lives and communities.
Dawn McLaughlin
Dawn is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland having trained and qualified with PwC. In 2005 she established Dawn McLaughlin & Co, a practice located in the North West City Region. For the past 37 years Dawn has specialised in advising start-up companies and small to medium size enterprises throughout the UK and Ireland.
She is a past President of the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, Chair of the Institute of Management - North West Ulster Branch and member of the Regional Board for Northern Ireland. She was also on the Member Services Committee of the Ulster Society of Chartered Accountants Ireland as the North West representative and a member of the Board of the local Leadership Team of Business in the Community.
Dawn was a member of the steering group established by the Ulster Society of Chartered Accountants which produced the report Financing for Growth, examining the financial structures and products available for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Northern Ireland.
She was founder member of the Support My Business NI Initiative providing mentoring and workshops on a pro bono basis to Northern Ireland businesses and was awarded the Derry City Council 2014 Woman of the Year Award for her contribution to enterprise.
Dawn is a Trustee on the Board of Governors of St John’s Primary School in Derry having previously served for twelve years as the Department of Education NI representative.
She holds no other public appointments.
Michael McQuillan
Michael McQuillan is Chief Executive at Enterprise NI. Previously he was Director of the Business Institute and the Centre for SME Development at Ulster University and was appointed as a Visiting Professor to the Ulster University Business School in 2010. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of McQuillan Associates - a business growth consultancy supporting the SME sector in Northern Ireland and has been involved in several businesses, throughout his career, notably, as co-founder and Managing Director of The Streat café chain and The Streat Franchising Ltd. He has been engaged as a Non-Executive Director with several SMEs. He was a member of the Tourism Northern Ireland Board from 1 July 2013 to 31 March 2020.
He does not hold any other public appointments.
Ciaran Mulgrew
Having retired from a successful career in business in 2022, Ciaran took up his role as a Non-Executive Director of Invest NI in the same year. He is also Chair of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.
Ciaran previously served as a Non-Executive Director of Londonderry Port and Harbour Commission, Altnagelvin Hospital Trust and the Western Health and Social Care Trust. He was educated at Queens University Belfast and has a Master’s Degree in Business Leadership from Napier University Edinburgh.
He holds no other public appointments.
Patrick O’Gorman
Patrick has 20 years of experience in real estate development and investment, working with institutional and private investors from many different countries across the world. Having started his career in Northern Ireland and then London, Patrick qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in 2005. He then relocated to Warsaw, Poland to become the Head of Capital Markets at CBRE for Central & Eastern Europe.
Since 2013, Patrick has been an owner of Bywater Properties, investing and developing in real estate projects across the UK.
Bywater has completed a number of low carbon redevelopments as well as currently building the UK’s largest mass timber, carbon neutral office building located in London.
He holds no other public appointments.
Julie-Ann O’Hare
Julie-Ann has worked for 28 years in the Northern Ireland corporate banking sector.
Her career at Bank of Ireland spanned a period of strong economic growth as well as one of significant downturn in the economy during the global financial crisis.
She developed expertise in business modelling, commercial due diligence, scenario planning, stress testing and strategic investment analysis.
In 2017, Julie-Ann moved to private industry working with the UK and Ireland’s largest diagnostic company, Randox Laboratories Limited.
During the past 5 years she has further developed her experience across commercial, legal, financial and healthcare disciplines, extending her experience to international markets.
A law graduate from Queen’s University Belfast, Julie-Ann holds a diploma in Accounting & Finance from Ulster University and the Certified Director Designation from the Institute of Banking and University College Dublin.
She holds no other public appointments.
Scott Ritchie
Scott has extensive experience in business start up and high growth scale up companies having worked in several executive positions in the Global Telecoms & IT sectors.
He is the founder of BSO Network Solutions in London during the credit crunch of 2008. Specialising in low latency trading infrastructure and helping to develop High Frequency Trading Platforms for a number of Banks trading global capital & commodities markets. He continues to have an interest and investments in the burgeoning FinTech sector. Having returned to Northern Ireland after 20 years working overseas, Scott invested in the local telecoms market to develop a UK wide telecoms company which he exited in 2018.
Scott continues to work as an investor, advisor, and mentor to a variety of companies in Northern Ireland. He continues as an Executive Director of 2 companies and is also a keen support of the charity Co-Operation Ireland with which he has a long history.
He holds no other public appointments.
Register of Interests
A copy of the current Register of Interests for Board members can be obtained by contacting board.secretariat@investni.com.