Meet Our Panel

JJ O’Connell

Co-Chair and Director of Family Business Ireland

Kieran McCarthy

Specialises in advising family businesses, author of “Family Business – A Survival Guide”

Dr Na Fu

Associate Professor of Human Resource Management at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin

Dr Siobhan Killion

Lecturer in Strategic Management and Strategic HRM at Business Technological University Dublin

Mark Christal

Manager of Enterprise Ireland’s Regions and Entrepreneurship Division

David Donegan

Managing Partner, Donegans Solicitors, Cork

Pat McCann

CEO, Dalata Hotel Group

Andrew Hetherington

Chief Executive, Business to Arts

Glyn Roberts

CEO, Retail Nothern Ireland

Tomás Sercovich

CEO, Business in the Community

Margaret Hearty

Director of Programmes & Business Services, InterTradeIreland

Paul Keogh

Paul Keogh & Associates, Family Business Advisors

John McGrane

Family Business Network Ireland

Judging Process

  1. The judging panel consists of 11 industry professionals. Individuals are selected to serve as judges who have distinguished themselves in their field and who demonstrate exceptional leadership ability and vision.
  2. We operate a blind peer reviewing process where each judge privately grades the entries. All judges marks are combined and a meeting will then be set to review and sign off on the shortlist and winners. Nominees are judged against the criteria set out. There are two rounds of online judging as well as judging panel meetings to determine our finalists and winners.
  3. We accept, and encourage, self-nominations and also accept nominations for a firm/individual from 3rd parties. All nominations received for a firm/individuals will be collated for the judging process.
  4. By adhering to the specific guidelines and criteria of this system our judges are able to maintain the highest degree of fairness, accuracy and integrity and competently and effectively evaluate entries. The average points will be taken forward and the top submissions in each category will be deemed, finalists.
  5. We make all efforts to avoid conflicts of interest in the judging process (such as inadvertently assigning a judge to evaluate an entry with which he/she is associated). Any judges who find themselves with a conflict of interest are instructed to come forward and allow for the entry be judged by an impartial alternative judge.

Share This