Meet The Judges
Of The Good Governance Awards
Amelia Casey
Amelia is a Certified Bank Director with executive and board level experience in leading governance, sustainable finance, and culture transformations. Amelia has held several pivotal executive level roles in the Financial Services and Consulting sectors, including Head of Governance Wells Fargo Bank International, and Chief of Staff at Ulster Bank Ireland DAC. She was responsible for leading out on top Board priorities such as climate & environmental risk, culture, corporate governance, and data management.
Amelia is a member of Chapter Zero Ireland and has been a contributor to the development of Ireland’s Sustainable Finance Roadmap, and a member of BPFI’s Sustainable Finance Working Group. Amelia is a current member of the Court Services of Ireland Finance Committee, as well as a former member of the Institute of Banking Council.
In her earlier career, Amelia was a manager in Accenture, where she led a range of financial services client engagements within the Insurance and Banking sectors in Ireland, US and Eastern Europe.
Tom Costello
Tom has held a number of voluntary positions in the not-for -profit and charities sector, following his departure in December 2014 from the staff of The Atlantic Philanthropies as part of the wind down of that organisation internationally. He is a member of the Charities Regulatory Authority Board, a Ministerial nominee to the Advisory Council for Better Outcomes Brighter Futures and is a former Chair of The Children’s Rights Alliance.
In his career with Atlantic over a period of 14 years, Tom led investments in programmes for Children, Older People, Education and Community Development. His earlier career included stints in teaching and consulting in Organisation Development and Leadership at the Irish Management Institute, and as senior manager with FAS in the 1990’s. Tom’s early career was in the voluntary sector in leadership positions in both the National Youth Council of Ireland and the Union of Students in Ireland.
Dr. Thomas B Courtney
Tom is a Solicitor (non-practising) and author of The Law of Companies, (4th ed; 2016) and is a writer, speaker and thought leader in Irish company law and corporate governance and owner of Courtney Governance Limited.
As Chairperson of the Company Law Review Group, from its establishment in 2000 to 2018, Tom is recognised as being the architect of the pioneering Companies Act 2014. A former director, company secretary and head of legal at Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank, Tom worked in banking for 11 years before spending 18 years as a senior partner in Arthur Cox LLP where he established and headed the company compliance and governance group. Tom retired from Arthur Cox in 2024 and founded Courtney Governance Limited.
Bill Cunningham
Bill Cunningham is a Chartered Accountant with over 40 years’ experience in both the professional and commercial world. Bill was a Senior Partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers until his retirement in 2008. He was the managing partner of Coopers and Lybrand in Ireland prior to its merger with Price Waterhouse in 1998. Bill’s clients included many of the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ leading national and international clients, working with them on audit, advisory, merger and acquisition and re-structuring activities.
Since his retirement, Bill has continued to be active in business, holding a number of Non-Executive Director appointments and other advisory roles. Bill has chaired the Audit Committees in the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture, currently chairs the Audit Committee of the Pensions Authority and is an advisor to the Audit Committee of the Central Bank of Ireland. Bill also holds several not-for-profit directorships including the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture and Cricket Ireland and chairs the Board of Saint John of God Hospital in Dublin and has advised the Saint Vincent de Paul charity on their social housing strategy.
Níall Fitzgerald
Níall is Head of Ethics & Governance at Chartered Accountants Ireland. He has responsibility for leading the development of policy and embedding of matters relating to business ethics and governance across operations. Níall previously worked with PwC and before progressing to work in management consulting, advising in relation to provision of professional services, policy and internal control development, induction and board committee training.
He is well-travelled, having worked overseas in Europe, USA and Canada with organisations such as PwC, McKinsey & Company and PGL Travel. Níall has also authored Chartered Accountants Ireland’s publication on “Concise Guide to Ethics and Governance in the Charity and Not-for-profit sector”, a range of professional toolkits, numerous ethics and governance related articles, and leads a number of projects in relation to creation of values and ethics awareness and supports, organisational culture resources and effective audit committees training.
He holds a M.Acc from NUIG, Diploma in Corporate Governance from UCD, is a Chartered Accountant (FCA) and a Chartered Tax Consultant (CTC).ce.
Louise Gorman
Louise joined Trinity College Dublin as Assistant Professor in Finance in 2022. Since graduating from DCU with her PhD in 2016, she has lectured in finance, accounting and governance in a number of universities in Ireland and has led programmes in accounting, fintech and sustainable finance. Her research interests are primarily in corporate governance, ESG and integrated reporting. Having published work in these areas at international level, Louise is an active participant in the academic community and also regularly engages with, and delivers professional training to, practitioners and professional bodies.
Eva Gurn
Eva joined Boardmatch in 2011 and is their longest serving employee since its establishment in 2005. Eva was promoted to CEO in 2018 having held the position of Director since 2015. Eva is responsible for the overall strategic direction of Boardmatch, ensuring it achieves its objectives and continues to strengthen boards and make them more diverse. In 2023, Boardmatch recorded a new best of over 440 charity board appointments. Eva is passionate about how boards recruit, engaging new audiences to volunteer on boards and innovative in the ways that this is done. Eva sits on the board of YAP, Youth Advocate Programmes, a charity that delivers a range of services to young Irish people and their families. Eva also sits on two Committees of the National Volunteering Strategy in Ireland.
David Hickson
An excellent communicator with strong commercial acumen and 12 years’ experience leading a multi-disciplined team. Skilled in Financial Management, Negotiation, Business Planning, AML & GDPR Compliance, Operations Management, Coaching, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Advocacy Director with over 12 years’ experience leading a trade association, liaising with Government Ministers, Members of Parliament, Civil Servants, and engaging with all aspects of the media as required.
Catriona Hogan
Catriona Hogan is an Associate Consultant with 2into3, delivering a range of governance services. She has over twenty-five years’ experience of working in the non-profit sector and has managed local, regional and national organisations. A graduate of UCC, University of Pisa and School of Philanthropy Indiana University, Catriona has reported to Boards as a charity staff member and provided professional advice to Boards nationally and internationally. In 2018, Catriona completed a review of the Good Practice Certificate course for Charities Institute Ireland. In 2017 she wrote in collaboration with legal firm Mason Hayes and Curran the Charities Institute Ireland Fundraising Codes of Good Practice. She was also one of the members of the implementation group for the Statement of Guiding Principles for Fundraising – co-ordinated by ICTR.
Catriona provides professional advice and training to charities on all aspects of governance, compliance (in particular with Charity Regulator requirements and applications), regulation, strategy and fundraising. Catriona regularly speaks at conferences and seminars on areas of best practice, governance and compliance in the charity sector. Catriona believes passionately in the non-profit sector in Ireland and embraces and welcomes transparency, accountability and good practice in the sector. Catriona was a Board member of the National charity ‘Suicide or Survive’, a volunteer with the ‘Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind’ and a committee member of Cork Chamber of Commerce. She currently sits on a number of governance and risk committees for charities as an external advisor. Catriona is currently a trustee of the all Irish Primary school, Scoil Na Nog, in Co Cork, where all meetings are conducted through Irish.
Emma Hopper
Emma is the Head of People and Programmes in Volunteer Ireland, the national organisation that promotes, supports and advocates for volunteering in Ireland. Emma leads on Human Resources, Finance and Governance, working closely with the CEO and the Board to deliver the strategic direction of Volunteer Ireland. Emma manages a staff team covering a range of programme areas including Learning and Capacity Building, Volunteering Development Programme and Development of the National Volunteering Database I-VOL. Emma’s goal is to maintain employee relations and cultivate an environment that promotes inclusion, collaboration and innovation.
Sarah McCague
Sarah trained with Arthur Cox and since qualification has specialised in pensions and charity law. As a member of the firm’s Charity Law Group Sarah advises charities and not-for-profit organisations on establishment, Revenue applications, compliance, and day to day governance issues as well as on the impact of the Charities Act, 2009 on charitable organisations. She has also been a board member of a number of Irish charities and is an active participant in many Arthur Cox pro bono initiatives. In her pensions practice, Sarah advises employers and pension scheme trustees on the establishment and day to day operation of pension schemes including drafting scheme documentation and booklets and reviewing investment management agreements and agreements governing relationships with service providers. Sarah also advises on scheme reorganisations and the pensions elements of corporate transactions.”
Jane-Ann McKenna
Jane–Ann McKenna is the Chief Executive Officer of Dóchas, the Irish network for international development and humanitarian organisations. She has significant experience in humanitarian and emergency response, having led Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) teams in conflict and crises affected areas including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Central African Republic. She served as the Director of MSF Ireland from 2011-2016, where she led the strategic growth and scale up of MSF’s Irish office, focusing on fundraising, communications and recruitment initiatives. More recently, she led the development of MSF’s global strategy for 2020-2023. Jane–Ann is a qualified accountant (FCCA) with a Master of Business Studies in International Business from UCD Smurfit School of Business. Jane–Ann has previously been awarded UCD Alumni of the year for Business.
Fergal Moran
Fergal is the Director of Finance & Operations for The Wheel, Ireland’s national association of charities, community groups and social enterprises. He is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland and completed his accountancy training with KPMG after studying Business & Economics. Fergal worked in the non-profit sector for 7 years before joining The Wheel having previously spent a number of years in the multinational and hospitality industries. His other roles in the sector were as Finance Manager for an addiction support clinic in Dublin, and as Finance Director of an all-Ireland youth charity for 5 years. He also holds a certificate in culinary arts so loves cooking and dining out. He enjoys running, travelling and the cinema in his spare time.
Áine Myler
As the CEO of Charities Institute Ireland, Áine brings her leadership, business and representative experience to advocate for Charities Institute Ireland members, where the Triple Lock of good governance, strong financial controls and fundraising standards are the gold standard for the charity sector. A Board Member of Childvision, Ireland’s only dedicated centre for children with sight loss and Hail Housing Association, supporting people with mental health difficulties to integrate and live independent lives in the community. With a background as a Chartered Surveyor and consultant in the property & construction sector, Áine chairs Development & Property Committees, where she works with teams to build and develop strategies. Appointed by the Minister for Justice to the Board of the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA), Áine works with the Board & Executive to protect the interests of the public by ensuring that high standards are maintained in the delivery of property services.
Donnchadh Ó Mórdha
Donnchadh is a Director in Davy’s Institutional Consulting team, where he sets and implements investment policy on behalf of charities, government agencies, universities and other institutions. Donnchadh has 17 years’ investment experience with a particular focus on institutional investment governance, policy and portfolio management. He holds a First-Class Honours B.Sc. in Finance, Computing and Enterprise from Dublin City University and a MBS in Finance from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. He recently completed a Professional Diploma in Data Analytics in University College Dublin. Donnchadh is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a member of the CFA Institute. He has also completed the CFA Certificate in ESG Investment and is a member of CFA Society Ireland’s ESG Committee.
Seán O’Reilly
Sean is Assistant Professor in Accountancy at University College Dublin. He is also acting as the Interim Academic Director on the Masters of Accounting (MAcc) programme at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. Prior to his role in UCD he was the Assistant Head of the School of Accounting & Finance at Technological University Dublin. He trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in PwC. He has experience as a company Founder, Director, Non-Executive Director and Consultant which includes International projects.
Geraldine O’Sullivan
Geraldine has over 18 years’ experience of supporting the organisational development, volunteer management and governance journey of small to medium sized not for profit groups in Kerry plus larger networks nationally. Her training portfolio and client base is broad. She has been working as the Manager of Kerry Volunteer Centre since 2004 where she has earned a reputation for empowering the capacity of not for groups and their voluntary management committees.
Geraldine is keenly aware of the challenges that volunteers encounter when ‘doing governance’. She has worked with key national stakeholders such as the ICTR, the CRA and the Lobbying Regulatory Authority. She is a founding member and was long serving Director of Volunteer Ireland predecessor organisation Volunteer Centres Ireland and a member of the working group tasked with formulating The Statement of Guiding Principles for Fundraising in Ireland. Geraldine values the efforts being undertaken by trustees who are growing the culture of good governance practices.
Martin Quinn
Martin is a Chartered Management Accountant and Professor of Management Accounting & Accounting History at Queen’s Business School. He has worked for several indigenous and multi-national organisations before joining academia. His research works spans several areas, including analysis of the content of contemporary and historic corporate disclosures. He is also a non-executive director of a not-for-profit financial institution.
Paul Quinn
Paul is a management consultant, executive coach and independent non-executive director. He is a trustee of BoardMatch which specialises in board recruitment and strengthening governance in the not-for-profit sector.
Paul was previously the founding Chief Executive of the Office of Government Procurement. He had responsibility for national policy and procurement transformation as the Government’s CPO, and for the State’s central buying function. He also chaired the public procurement expert group at the OECD for two years, progressing a number of recommendations and best practice methodologies across all Member States. He stepped down from his CEO role in late 2023 having served for over 10 years in the civil service. Paul previously worked in eircom, now eir, where over the course of 28 years he held a number of senior management positions in financial shared services, transformation, operations and engineering.
He is a Chartered Director with the Institute of Directors and holds an MBA from DCU, a Diploma in Accounting and Finance from the ACCA, a BSc (Eng) from TCD, and an Hons. Diploma in Engineering from TUD.
Philip Smith
Philip is a partner in Arthur Cox and specialises in Pensions Law and Charity Law. Philip holds practising certificates in both Ireland and Northern Ireland.
As coordinating partner of Arthur Cox’s Charity Law Group, he advises on the issues affecting charitable and not-for-profit organisations and their Directors/Trustees including advice on governance, regulatory compliance investigations, Revenue aspects mergers, restructurings, cy-pres, wind-up, trust law and fundraising. He is the co-author of Law of Charities in Ireland (Bloomsbury Professional, 2019)
Paul Turpin
Paul has served as a board member of regulatory bodies, commercial entities, public sector and non-profit bodies. His early roles included as an economist in the public sector followed by a career in investment management. Subsequently he worked for over 10 years with the Institute of Public Administration developing governance services. He was a founder and manager of the Governance Forum. He is a qualified Chartered Director and Investment Fund Director. He is an adviser to boards on governance issues and serves on Boards and Committees of Regulated financial companies. He has recently completed terms as a member of the PSI Council and as chairperson and of the Audit Committee of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications.
Rea Walshe
Rea Walshe is the owner of RW Consulting a consultancy firm specialising in corporate governance in the private, sport and not-for-profit sectors. She is also currently the Interim CEO of Boardmatch Ireland – the only Irish charity that specialises in charity and not-for-profit board recruitment and support. Rea is a qualified solicitor and graduated from UCC with an honours degree in law and a certificate in governance from the IPA. She is currently a participant on the 7th Edition of the Executive Masters in International Sports Governance.
Rea is an experienced Board Director and Company Secretary. She was Chief Operating Officer at the Football Association of Ireland and led the extensive governance reform journey there from 2019 – 2021, which was recognised by UEFA in its own Good Governance Awards. She now works with a number of clients in improving their internal governance and ensuring that their policies and procedures are up to date and being implemented. As Interim CEO of Boardmatch she works closely with not-for-profit organisations all over Ireland, providing support, advice and training on building and strengthening voluntary boards and committees.
GGA Assessors
There is also a panel of assessors who assist with the process of screening and shortlisting applications who are submitted to the judges for adjudication and selection of the category winners. See the Good Governance Awards Assessors below:
| Andrew Madden Arlene Harmann Ben Hilliard Brendan O’Connor Caitríona McMahon Cara Teahan Cian Spillane Claire Rudd Clodagh O’Reilly Dáibhí O’Leary Damien Roche Derek O’Reilly Diarmaid Ó Corrbuí Elaine Breen Elaine Gililand Elton Spelman Emma Hickey Eoghan Murphy Evelyn Fitzpatrick Heather Briers Helen Concannon |
Helen Nezkea Henry Thynne James Doorley Jenny Gannon Joanne Ryan John Carolan John Curran Jon McBride Julie Stephens Karen Dunne Kathya Rouse Keith Morrow Kevin Gregory Lisa Rowntree Marcos Simpson Mark O’Leary Martina Larkin Maureen O’Donnell Michael Wickham Moriarty Mike O’Halloran |
Niamh Gavin Olivia Rigney Pamela Bastable Pat Barker Paul Barry Paul Cahill Philip O’Callaghan Renee Zandvliet Rhea Albuquerque Róisín McGuigan Roland Fallon Ruth Pritchard Salvador Nash Sarah McCarthy Senan Turnbull Sinéad Gordon Siobhán O’Leary Tom Connaughton Tommy Boyle Tony Gaynor |
Technical Assessment Panel
Those entries for annual report award that have been long-listed will have their financial statements technical assessed by a firm of accountants. In 2024 our accountancy firms who will conduct the technical assessments are:
The Good Governance Awards
is an initiative that recognises and encourages adherence to good governance practice by Community, Voluntary and Charitable organisations in Ireland.
