New roles: (top row) Anna Agafonova, Colm Kearns, Michelle Concannon; (bottom row) Denis Cambridge, Carmel Mulroe, James McDermott.
Here is a selection of people starting new roles with Pepper Advantage, Heneghan, Signify Health, Siro, Bibby Financial Services and EDF Renewables.
Anna Agafonova has been appointed as CFO of credit intelligence company Pepper Advantage, which employs over 500 people in Ireland. She was formerly group CFO at Swift, driving the company’s growth and performance, digital transformation, including robotics and machine learning. Her previous roles include CFO at American Express Global Business Travel. She has also previously worked for private equity, listed, private and cooperative-owned firms. She holds an LLM Law in Finance from Goethe University, a BA in International Management from Otto-von-Guericke University (both Germany), and a diploma in International Management from Technical University (Ukraine). Agafonova also holds ACCA, CFE, CIA finance professional qualifications.
Colm Kearns has been promoted to senior account manager with communications firm Heneghan. He originally joined the firm in 2017 as an intern. He provides support across a range of corporate clients, including ABP Food Group, MediaCom, Home Plus, Wisetek, Rentokil Initial, The Ireland Funds and Blueface. Colm holds a masters in Public Relations from Dublin Institute of Technology. He also holds a BA in English and Anthropology from Maynooth University. He previously worked as a sales and marketing intern at MentoPitch, a Dublin-based technology startup. Heneghan represents leading Irish and international businesses across a wide range of sectors.
Michelle Concannon has been appointed senior VP of engineering at health technology firm Signify Health, which recently opened its first non-US base in Galway. She joins from Microsoft, returning to her native Galway having also held senior roles at US healthcare firm Optum, Cisco and at Avaya (formerly Nortel). She has more than 20 years of international experience across Ireland, US, EMEA and Asia. Signify Health has more than 2,000 employees in New York City and Dallas, Texas. Michelle holds a degree in Computer Systems from UL and a masters in Computing from GMIT (now Atlantic Technological University) and a Nanodegree in Machine Learning.
Denis Cambridge has been appointed as build director with fibre broadband service Siro, the ESB and Vodafone joint venture. A native of Cork, he has held senior management positions across ESB Group in national customer care, human resources, regional networks management and organisation change roles. Denis will lead a team responsible for the rollout of Siro’s broadband infrastructure, building its network to the highest standard, supported by Siro’s contract partners. Denis will play a key role in supporting Siro in reaching its target of providing fibre broadband access to 770,000 premises in 154 towns and cities in Ireland over the next four years.
Carmel Mulroe has been appointed as business development manager for the West, Midlands and Northern Ireland with Bibby Financial Services Ireland, a provider of invoice finance and other funding solutions to Irish SMEs. She spent that last 20 years with Ulster Bank, notably in lending to SMEs. For the last five years, Carmel was named as Ulster Bank’s No1 business development manager as a result of her commitment to working with SMEs nationwide to facilitate their continued growth and expansion. Amongst her qualifications, Carmel has a degree in Financial Services (Professional Banker) and a professional diploma in SME Credit from University College Dublin.
James McDermott has been appointed as planning project manager with electricity company EDF Renewables Ireland. He will focus on the planning and delivery of its pipeline of c.1GW of renewable energy projects across Ireland, including onshore and offshore wind, solar PV and battery storage technology. James will work across all stages of development, including preliminary design and statutory consent projects. From Banbridge, Co Down, he recently returned to Ireland from London, where he spent eight years with a number of local planning authorities. James holds a BSc in Environmental Planning from QUB and is a recognised chartered planner with the Royal Town Planning Institute.
