Eamonn Quinn (Chairperson)
Eamonn Quinn, whose career began in investment banking, held a series of senior executive management roles in Superquinn, the Irish supermarket chain founded by his father, Senator Feargal Quinn. During this time he was instrumental in managing the growth of this fast-moving consumer business in a highly competitive market. Eamonn has held leading representative positions on many international food retail industry bodies including the Paris-based supermarket organisation C.I.E.S., where he chaired the marketing committee and the management development programme, and the USA based Operating Executives Council of the Food Marketing Institute. Since the sale of Superquinn Eamonn manages the Quinn Family investment portfolio, a number of private investments including ventures related to the global food retail sector.
Michael Aherne
Michael co-leads Novus Modus' overall investment strategy and is a member of the investment committee. Michael previously held a number of senior management positions within the ESB group. Most recently he was Group Strategy and Risk Manager. In addition to establishing comprehensive enterprise risk management systems and being part of ESB's team in formulating and launching its Strategic Framework to 2020, Michael led a large number of high profile corporate finance transactions.
Prior to this, Michael worked in ESB International from 1997 to 2004 where he managed ESBI's GB and Northern Ireland business developments, including the Coolkeeragh CCGT development, the acquisition of the Marchwood CCGT project and ESBI's UK strategy development. Michael is a Chartered Accountant and trained with PricewaterhouseCoopers from 1982 to 1988.
Peter van der Harst
Prior to founding his own business innovation consultancy, Peter van der Harst held a series of senior global strategic roles in the lighting industry. During his career he was Managing Director of LumiLeds Lighting, Vice President Marketing Europe for Philips Lighting Eindhoven and Vice President Global Strategic Marketing for Philips Lighting Eindhoven. Core to the latter role was P&L responsibility for the Shop and Store lighting segment in the Netherland dealing with all major retailers. His professional experience of the global lighting industry, combined with his qualifications as a constructional engineer and architect, gives him a deep knowledge of how lighting is deployed by food retailers across the world as a strategic business tool. Peter coaches innovative high-tech businesses through the scaling-up phase and is also Managing Director and co-owner of Total Interior Solutions, a Dutch architectural practice.
Simon Drury
Simon Drury is a Partner in the Climate Change Capital Private Equity Fund. Prior to CCC Simon was a Director and then Founding Partner of Charterhouse Capital Partners a highly successful European private equity firm. During his sixteen years at Charterhouse Simon was involved in all forms of investment from venture to expansion capital and from small MBO's to large LBO's.
Prior to that Simon worked as a Senior Engineer with Air Products Inc the US gases group. Simon has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from Cranfield.
Ray Naughton
Ray Naughton is co-founder of 4th Level Ventures, a €20 million Venture Capital Fund that is focused exclusively on investing in companies whose Intellectual Property arises from third level education institutional research.
From 1987 to 1998 Ray was Managing Director of Siemens Nixdorf in Ireland and from 1992 to 1997 he worked internationally on a major entrepreneurial development and culture change programme.
Austin Duke
Austin Duke is a serial investor in high growth technology start-up companies. He is acting CEO of Eblana Photonics and has held senior positions with a number of high-profile global companies, including General Electric and Arthur Anderson, since his graduation from UCC in 1963 and subsequent award of an MBA from Trinity College Dublin in 1970. Austin joined Enterprise Ireland in 1976 where he ran the patenting service and was responsible for the commercialisation of technology. Since 1996 he has been a director of Optronics-Ireland, the Irish national programme for advanced optoelectronic technology.
Dr. Liam Kelly
Dr. Liam Kelly founded Nualight in 2004. His previous commercial LED activities include the establishment of CorkOpt Ltd. in 1994, to develop and manufacture LED-based luminaires for the machine vision industry. CorkOpt was acquired by USA-based StockerYale Inc. in 2000 and Liam continued as Managing Director until 2003. He was also a founder-director of Millimetre Wave Technology Ltd., and of Farran Technology Ltd, an imaging and communications systems manufacturer, until its acquisition by the Smiths Group plc in 2005. Prior to his commercial interests, Liam spent twenty years in various senior roles in University College Cork including Associate Professor of Microelectronics. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, is a founding director of Optronics-Ireland, and is a founding director of the Irish National Microelectronic Research Centre.
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