Our Patron
Our Patron is Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland.
Our Board
Monika Vikander-Hegarty (Chairperson)
Start date: December 2020
Monika Vikander-Hegarty is a seasoned and strategic executive in the field of Human Resources, with a 35-year career in global commercial business, with a specialised focus on HR functions for the past 25 years. Her wealth of expertise extends to areas such as talent management, organisational effectiveness, and the harmonisation of HR programs with business strategies across diverse industries, including Medical Device, Retail, Electronics, and Manufacturing.
Throughout her career, Monika has held Director positions in various organisations spanning the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors.
In terms of education, Monika holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, a Higher Diploma in HR Management, and a Master of Science in Leadership in Education and has a Diploma in Company Direction. Additionally, she is a qualified Executive Coach with recent academic pursuits in Environmental and Biodiversity studies.
Monika’s commitment to ongoing professional development is underscored by her chartered membership with several industry associations. Currently, she is actively engaged in the environment and nonprofit sectors with a focus on sustainability and social responsibility.
Skills: Strategic Leadership, Board Leadership, Human Resources & Learning and Education, Project Management, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Change Management.
Susan Prendiville (Treasurer)
Start date: June 2023
Susan Prendiville is a Regulatory Compliance leader at Meta Inc. Susan has held the leadership role of Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Risk Officer and Money Laundering Reporting Officer for over five years at Meta, reporting directly to the Board of Directors, on risk, compliance and AML regulatory matters. Prior to Meta, Susan gained significant regulatory experience through both Risk Consulting as a senior manager with KPMG, and in Operational Risk with Elavon Financial Services merchant acquiring, a subsidiary of US Bank. Susan has over 15 years’ experience helping financial service institutions with Risk, Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing regulation implementation and adherence. Through her work, Susan has worked closely with the regulators in Europe, APAC, the USA and South America.
For over five years, Susan has been serving as an Executive Director on the Board of Facebook Payments International – an E-Money Institution (“EMI”) licensed in Ireland, which enables EU based charities to receive online donations via Facebook and Instagram from over 40 countries – c. $250M donations per annum.
Susan is a cross-functional leader with significant corporate, compliance, operations and governance expertise. She excels in high-growth environments, dealing with complex problems.
Susan is a chartered accountant (ACA) having trained with KPMG Ireland and is a member of Chartered Accountants Ireland, the International Compliance Association and the Institute of Banking. Susan holds a degree in Business and Law from University College Dublin and a Masters in Accounting with UCD Smurfit School.
Skills: Corporate Governance, Risk, Compliance, Regulation, Payments, Financial Services, Strategy.
Martin Lyes
Start date: December 2020
Martin Lyes has held a number of senior management roles in the public sector and was Divisional Manager for Research & Innovation with Enterprise Ireland for 14 years. He has extensive experience of leading large teams in the delivery of technology and innovation programmes against strict deadlines and deliverables. He has also been deeply involved in leading staff through significant periods of change, including organisational mergers.
During his working life Martin has been involved in strategy development at an organisational, national and international level and retains an active network of contacts across European research and innovation agencies. He was Chair of the European Association of Innovation Agencies for a number of years, a Governor of the European Science Foundation and Delegate to a range of EU programmes.
Currently, Martin undertakes consultancy roles nationally and internationally, most recently in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, where he specialises in research strategies and innovation led change. He has been on the boards of a number of not for profit organisations and was Chair of the St Michael’s House Group of companies from 2016 – 2020 where he oversaw significant corporate governance changes. He was recently appointed to the Board of Tallaght University Hospital.
Skills: Organisational Innovation, Change Management, Performance Monitoring.
Aileen Hickie
Start date: June 2023
Aileen Hickie is the Chief Executive Officer of the charity Parentline. Parentline is a national organisation offering information, support and guidance to parents in confidence and without judgement. Aileen has previously worked as a barrister in both criminal and civil law having been called to the Bar of Ireland in 2000.
Prior to that, Aileen was a journalist with various newspapers including The Sunday Business Post, The Sunday Tribune and The Irish Independent and has also worked as a broadcast journalist and contributor with many radio and television stations such as RTE radio 1 and Today FM and TV3 (now Virgin Media) and RTE television. She remains a weekly television news panel contributor to Today with Maura and Daithi on RTE 1.
Aileen has a BA (honours) in Communications and a Masters in Journalism from Dublin City University and a Barrister-at-Law degree from The Honorable Society of King’s Inns.
Skills: Legal, Fundraising, Media, Marketing, Nonprofit Management and Event Management.
Hugh O’Hagan
Start date: July 2023
With over 15 years of expertise in the field, currently serving as Head of Risk Management at Mercer Global Investments Managers Limited in Dublin, Hugh specialises Risk Management and Compliance within the Asset and Investment Management industry. Hugh plays a crucial role in overseeing the firm’s risk, governance, and controls frameworks. He is passionate about supporting and cultivating risk cultures within organisations. Prior to his current role, Hugh held various positions in Operational Risk, Performance and Attribution within Risk Management at Amundi/Pioneer Investments. He also served as the Head of Risk & Compliance for W&W Investment Managers DAC.
Hugh’s educational background further complements his professional experience. He is an Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) and holds a Certificate in Compliance (ACOI). He obtained a Bachelor of Business Studies from Trinity College Dublin and a Master in Business from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. Additionally, Hugh has a Professional Diploma in Applied Alternative Investments from the Institute of Bankers. Most recently, he completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Sustainability Leadership in Business from TU Dublin, highlighting his commitment to corporate environmental and social responsibility.
Skills: Risk Management, Corporate Governance and Reporting, Compliance, ESG & Sustainability, Financial Reporting and Audit & Assurance.
Lynette Bradshaw
Start date: June 2024
Lynette is a founding member of A.S.S.C. Accompaniment Support Services for Children and is the organisation’s Executive Director. Her responsibilities include ensuring excellent governance standards and liaising and reporting to the Board of Trustees. She is also in charge of the A.S.S.C. financial portfolio. She provides external training to stakeholders on topics such as child safeguarding, the impact of trauma, child victims of crime, and tools to help safeguard professionals working with the effects of trauma.
Lynette has been an advocate for child victims of crime, specialising in child witness, child safeguarding, and child sexual abuse for over 12 years, initially working with CARI. Lynette has expertise in supporting young people and their families when their young person is due to testify in a criminal trial, particularly in voicing the young person’s rights through the Victims of Crime Act 2017 and other relevant legislation in Ireland.
Furthermore, Lynette completed the “New Frontiers” entrepreneurial training program with Enterprise Ireland in 2022 and earned a Professional Diploma from UCD in Finance for Non-Financial Managers in 2023.
Lynette was appointed to the Board of Directors for Carmichael House in June 2024.
Skills: Entrepreneurial skills, Creativity, Problem-solving, Advocacy, Qualitative Research, Start-ups, Strategic Planning, Charity Management & Governance, Financial Management, Risk Management, GDPR Compliance, Volunteer Management, Team Support, IT skills in Usability Engineering and Computer Software Development.
Jolene Byrne
Start date: June 2024
Jolene is a Chartered Company Secretary and is a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute. She also holds a Bachelor of Corporate Law (Honours) and an LLB (Honours) from the University of Galway, as well as a Diploma in Corporate Governance from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and a Professional Certificate in Compliance from the IOB.
Jolene has over 15 years’ experience in company secretariat and governance matters, having previously held senior roles in the FMCG industry and education technology sector.
Jolene is a Board member of South Connacht Citizens Information Service, and previously served on the Board of Galway Simon Community.
Skills: Company Secretariat, Corporate Governance, Compliance, Risk Management, Sustainability.
Rosemary Keogh
Start date: June 2024
Rosemary Keogh is a strategically focused senior executive with 25 years experience across complex and multi-faceted organisations in the non-profit, public, and corporate sectors. A qualified accountant and organisational behaviour specialist, Rosemary has a proven track-record of delivering extensive strategic, operational, governance and financial management expertise and has achieved recognition as a skilled influencer and communicator with excellent relationship development and stakeholder engagement skills.
Passionate about public service and the role of non-profits in Irish Society, Rosemary is currently Assistant Secretary for Corporate and Members’ Services at the Houses of the Oireachtas. She has previously served as CEO of the Irish Wheelchair Association; CEO of Order of Malta Ireland; Chair of the National Disability Services Association; Board Member of the Charities Regulatory Authority; and Chair of DEBRA Ireland. Prior to moving into the non-profit sector in 2012, Rosemary held senior finance roles to European Finance Director level across a range of companies from global multi-nationals to SMEs and has served as Company Secretary to a number of Corporate Boards.
Rosemary is a qualified accountant (ACCA) and holds a B.A. in Mathematics and English and a Diploma in Corporate Governance. In 2021, Rosemary completed an MSc in Work and Organisational Behaviour with a research focus on the importance of CEO wellbeing in the achievement of organisational goals in the Charity sector.
Skills: Strategic Leadership; Organisational Development; Change Management; Governance and Financial Management; Stakeholder Engagement.
Dermot O’Riordan
Start Date: June 2024
Dermot spent most of his career working in the public sector in various roles in the areas of corporate governance, audit and assurance, risk management and financial management. He is very experienced in providing consultancy and training services in these areas and latterly managed the governance function of several public sector bodies.
Now retired from paid employment, currently Dermot is a board member of Age Action, the chairman of the audit and risk committee of the Royal Irish Academy, the chairman of the governance committee of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and a member of the governance, audit and risk committee of Christ Church Cathedral Dublin. Previously he was a member of the finance, audit and risk committee of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and a director and chairman of the audit committee of the National Parents Council Primary.
Dermot holds a Doctorate in Governance and is a member of Institute of Directors in Ireland and a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
Skills: Public Sector and Non Profit Corporate Governance, Financial Management, Risk Management, Audit and Assurance, Strategy Implementation.
Clare Power
Start date: June 2024
Clare is Chief of Staff with Enterprise Ireland. She drives alignment across key business functions on behalf of the CEO and Senior Leadership Team. Areas of focus include strategy, operations, performance measurement, communication, employee engagement, sustainability, service delivery excellence, board and external stakeholder engagement.
During the pandemic, Clare led the agency’s National Co-Working Hub Infrastructure response while representing Enterprise Ireland on the DETE National Remote Working Strategy steering group and influencing its development.
For a decade, Clare bridged the worlds of academia and industry to design and deliver customized executive education to Irish industry. She partnered with Irish and International Higher Education Institutes including IESE Business School, IMI, DCU and Open University. Clare led new modes of e-learning delivery to widen participation in executive education across the Irish enterprise base.
Clare has a background in in-house HR and OD. She graduated from NUI Galway with an MSc in Leadership Development, with a prior degree in HR from National College of Ireland.
Clare is an advisory panel member with social enterprise Grow Remote, a Leading Irelands Future Together (LIFT) roundtable facilitator, and a member of the Learning and Development Institute of Ireland and the Professional Women’s Network.
Skills: strategy, communications, talent development, programme management, stakeholder engagement, corporate development.
The following Directors retired from Carmichael’s Board on June 18th 2024
Gerry Culligan
Start date: April 2016
Gerry Culligan is an independent Consultant, Board Advisor and Non-Executive Director in the private, public and not for profit sectors working with clients to develop and implement strategies and enhance business performance.
Gerry has extensive commercial and financial experience across a number of industries, having held senior Executive Director roles in Transport with Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail, Financial Services with Aviva, Communications with Eircom and Grocery with Mars Ireland. Gerry has held positions as non-executive Chair of Eircom Phonewatch, Ireland’s leading residential home security company and is a former Director of the Eircom Employee Share Ownership Trust. Also, he was a Non-Executive Director at Trócaire and was Chair of their Funding and Public Engagement Board Committee.
Gerry is an accountant (FCMA) and a member of the Marketing Institute of Ireland (MMII).
Skills: Strategic Development and Implementation, Business Transformation, Commercial Acumen and General Management.
Michael Kavanagh
Start date: January 2018
Michael is the CEO of the Compliance Institute, a Board member and chair of the audit committee of Carmichael, vice chair of the Sport Ireland/FAI Governance Oversight Group, a member of the Sustainable Finance Skillnet Steering Committee , a council member and Chair of the Education committee of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants and a member of the Irish committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales.
Prior to that Michael was Director of DPP with KPMG Ireland, CEO of IAASA (The Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority), Head of Financial Reporting Supervision with IAASA and Technical Manager and Head of the practice review function at the Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He established Ireland’s statutory accounting enforcement function (tasked with examining whether the financial reports of listed entities comply with financial reporting standards) and oversaw the establishment of Ireland’s statutory Audit Inspection regime (tasked with inspecting the quality of audit work conducted by Ireland’s large audit firms) . For 12 years, he was the Irish Observer at the Corporate Reporting Council of the FRC which produces UK and Irish accounting standards. He was also Ireland’s representative at ESMA’s European Enforcers Co-ordination Sessions which is tasked with co-ordinating accounting enforcement across Europe having chaired a number of ESMA sub-committees. Michael has acted as examiner, moderator, lecturer and solution writer for various accountancy bodies.
Michael is a qualified accountant and a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPA Ireland) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW).
Skills: Accountancy, Senior Management, Public Sector Governance.
Clodagh O’Brien
Start date: January 2018
Clodagh is a partner in Crowe Horwath’s Consultancy department and she and her team joined from Newmarket Consulting where she was Managing Director. Clodagh has almost 20 years’ experience working with organisations in the commercial, nonprofit and public sectors. Her particular interests are arts and culture, the creative sector, education, health and social care, and tourism.
She has worked in multi-national and owner-managed environments, in national and international contexts. Prior to joining Newmarket, she worked in a marketing capacity in the media, leisure and electronics sectors in Ireland and the UK.
Clodagh graduated from Dublin City University in 1993 with an honours degree in International Marketing and Languages (German and Spanish) and graduated from NUI Maynooth in 2010 with a Masters in Sociology.
Skills: Strategy, Organisation Review and Development, Marketing and Digital Marketing, and Business Planning.
Joe Ritchie
Start date: January 2018
Joe is the Principal of Donal M Gahan Ritchie & Company Solicitors which is a general legal practise based in Dublin 2. Joe has over 20 years’ experience of dealing with a variety of legal matters.
Joe is a qualified solicitor and was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors in 1998. He is a Board member of the IMNDA (Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association)
Skills: Legal Compliance, Commercial and General Management.
Margaret Rogers
Start date: March 2018
Margaret retired as CEO of Heart Children Ireland (HCI) in August 2021. HCI is the support group in Ireland for children born with a Congenital Heart Disorder.
She has over 21 years’ experience as the CEO of a charity. She also has over 20 years’ experience working in credit control at EBS Building Society.
Margaret also worked in the nursing home sector for a short time.
Margaret is a Trustee of the Grant Making Committee of the Hospital Saturday Fund.
Skills: Fundraising, Event Management, Project Management, and Nonprofit Management.
Orla Cunningham
Start date: December 2020
Orla Cunningham is the COO with Trinity College Dublin having previously worked with Bank of Ireland for c30 years. During her career she has held numerous leadership positions and managed multiple projects which include Outsourcing, GDPR, IT change, Procurement, Operations Management, Facilities Management, Real Estate Restructure, Training and COO Markets and Treasury.
She holds a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Trinity College, a CIPD diploma in Human Resource management from the National College of Ireland and a Diploma in Corporate Governance from the Corporate Governance Institute. She is also a co-opted Board member of the Children’s Rights Alliance and Common Purpose Ireland.
Skills: Business Transformation, Change Management, Project Delivery, Cyber Security, HR, Administration, Team Leadership, Process Re-engineering.
Noreen Fahy – Retired from Carmichael’s Board on 19th September 2024
Start date: June 2022
Noreen is the Director of Finance and Corporate Services of the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) and as a member of the IPA Senior Leadership Team, has responsibility for the development and delivery of the IPA Corporate Strategy, with specific responsibility for the Finance and Corporate Services strategy.
Noreen is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (ACMA), a Chartered Global Management Accountant and a member of the Institute of Directors (IoD Dip), Ireland.
Noreen’s career spans commercial and non-commercial sectors, both national and international. Specifically, Noreen offers 25+ years’ experience in the service sector (Education and Professional Development) with specialist expertise in the leadership and provision of training, advisory and consultancy services across state bodies, regulatory agencies, central and local government and the non-profit and public benefit entities.
In recognition of Noreen’s particular expertise in this area, she has been invited to sit on and Chair the Audit Committees of many public bodies including the Houses of the Oireachtas, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Local Authority and previously the Department of Defence, Mental Health Commission and others.
Noreen is deeply committed to continued self-improvement and development, and is motivated by supporting stakeholders in achieving goals and objectives.
Skills: Public Sector and Not For Profit Finance and Corporate Governance, Leadership and Strategic Performance, Operationalisation of Change, Audit and Assurance Arrangements.