Digital chair of computer science in University College Dublin and a founding director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Smyth is the go-to tech academic, with over 400 peer-reviewed papers to his name. He doesn’t just talk the talk, though. An adviser to countless tech firms, including NewsWhip, Aylien, Clever Cards and Kinzen, Smyth is also an entrepreneur in his own right, having played a critical role in the success of Changing Worlds, which was acquired by Amdocs for $60 million back in 2008.

In 2023, Time magazine’s first-ever AI 100 listed Birhane among the likes of Sam Altman, Jensen Huang and Geoffrey Hinton. She has since been named as a member of the UN’s AI advisory body, and her rise to prominence can be traced back to her influential audits of AI datasets. In 2020, while conducting research at UCD and Lero, Birhane uncovered how a much-cited image dataset may have contaminated AI systems with racist, misogynistic and other slurs. 

An obvious choice for our rankings, Scanlon was bigging up AI before most of us had ever heard of it. Having scaled SoapBox, which led the way in showing how you can responsibly build an AI-focused business, Scanlon was appointed Ireland’s first AI ambassador last year to “lead a national conversation” about the challenges and opportunities ahead as widespread AI adoption becomes a reality.

A new occasional columnist for Connected magazine, Carolan writes frequently on the intersection between technology and democracy. Founder and director of Digital Action, a board member of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and a consultant at Proponent, her weekly newsletter ‘The Briefing’ is a must-read.

Named as one of the Irish Independent’s “50 ones-to-watch in 2023”, and “one of the 100 women changing Ireland” in 2021 by the Irish Examiner, Áine Kerr has long had a spot on this list wrapped up. A co-founder of anti-disinformation platform Kinzen in 2017, before its acquisition by Swedish streaming giant Spotify in 2022, Kerr also previously managed a Facebook team in New York, working with journalists across the world. In addition, she served as managing editor of Storyful before it was bought by News Corp, and prior to that had a successful career as both a journalist and broadcaster. In recent years, she’s returned to the airwaves and done much to promote women entrepreneurs.

Lillington has written on the highs and lows of the tech sector for over 20 years, giving an Irish slant to the comings and goings in Silicon Valley and beyond. Smart, witty and insightful, she deserves kudos for recognising early on the issues around data privacy and protection, and just how badly Ireland has acted on these in many instances.

You can’t keep a good creative down and following the disappointing closure of Dublin’s Science Gallery, its head of programming rebounded with the creation of Beta Festival, an event exploring Ireland’s role in the global tech landscape through a mix of art, discussion and experimentation. In November 2023, Murray successfully joined the dots between technologists, artists and the public in a carefully curated forward-looking event. And she aims to do the same again this year.

BH Consulting recently celebrated 20 years in business, marking a milestone in the storied career of founder Brian Honan. On the long list of organisations that have turned to him for cybersecurity advice you’ll find Europol and the EU. But global recognition has not kept him from strengthening Ireland’s security position. He contributed to the development of new guidelines for our National Cyber Security Centre and, in 2008, founded IRISSCERT, Ireland’s first Computer Emergency Response Team, which he continues to lead.

You can’t keep a good man down or so they say. Hanrahan is proof of that having quickly returned to the fray after stepping down as CEO of Angi. He has recently raised $18 million for Keychain, a new venture that is seeking to build the world’s first comprehensive AI-powered supply chain platform for consumer packaged goods to help retailers and brands quickly identify over 10,000 manufacturing partners. Keychain is aiming to bring clarity and convenience to a sector, which Hanrahan describes as a “deeply fragmented landscape”.

A force to be reckoned with in the Irish start-up and media scenes, Little has had a storied career with 20 years of broadcast news under his belt from RTÉ, where he became the broadcaster’s first Washington correspondent and had a spell as the anchor of their flagship programme Prime Time. In 2010, he founded the world’s first social news agency, Storyful, which eventually sold to News Corp, and Kinzen in 2017, which was recently acquired by music giant Spotify.

An increasingly controversial figure, McCabe founded Intercom along with Des Traynor, Ciarán Lee and David Barrett in 2011 in Dublin. He led the unicorn from its founding to 2020 when he moved to the position of chairman. He returned to the position of CEO in October 2022. Intercom has developed a popular software platform that brings messaging products for sales, marketing and customer support together. Having swiftly embraced AI, the company should be celebrating recent wins but instead finds itself on the backfoot as McCabe raises eyebrows due to his political leanings.

As well as overseeing Intercom’s R&D team, Traynor is very much the tech unicorn’s lead evangelist, happily preaching the word about its solutions at tech conferences across the world. In addition, he’s a canny investor, having backed almost every Irish company of note you can think of, including Stripe, Evervault, &Open, Manna, Orreco and Tines.

Why create one successful business when you can create a multitude of them? That seems to be Terry Clune’s mantra. Having founded his first company, Taxback, in 1996, Clune has gone on to establish many more, all of which have been wildly successful. In 2023, Immedis, the global payroll platform he set up in 2016, was acquired in a €575 million deal, while a year earlier, Transfermate, the payments infrastructure-as-a-service provider he co-founded with Sinead Fiztmaurice, achieved unicorn status after raising $70 million. Among the other companies under the CluneTech umbrella are Sprintax. Founded in 2020 and led by Joanna Murphy, the company is focused on a niche area that is estimated to be worth $1.7 trillion for organisations, and there are few rivals in its path.

It only took judges of the inaugural National Fintech Awards minutes to unanimously opt for Colm Lyon as the winner of the outstanding achievement award last year. And it’s easy to see why. A real visionary, Lyon has not only built two successful companies, he’s also been a huge advocate for the fintech sector in both Ireland and Britain. Having sold Realex, the online payments company he founded and led, for €115 million, Lyon could have settled for the easy life but instead he quickly returned to the fray with Fire, another fintech that is making waves.

McGuirk’s Westport-based Payslip is on fire at the moment. Founded in 2016 by the former Taxback chief executive, the company recently secured a major partnership with Deloitte to provide payroll services. It’s forecasting annual recurring revenue will reach €15 million over the next 18 months following this deal and the growth of other partnerships. With 83 staff and €12.4 million in funding, Payslip is among the best fintechs out there.

Providing a kind of “virtual CFO” service is the modus operandi of Swoop, the ambitious fintech co-founded by Reynolds, which aims to give financial advice to firms in a jargon-free way. The youngest daughter of former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, she brought her experience as an accountant at KPMG to the founding of Swoop in 2018, which now employs more than 150 people across three continents. With over 15 years of experience in corporate financing, largely focused on matching businesses with investment opportunities, and a booming business in Swoop, Reynolds is an obvious choice for this ranking.

Featuring as a key member of our newly established media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, Hodnett has the difficult task of making the internet a safer place. But with a CV that includes legal expertise in several fields, from telecoms to the National Lottery to advising for ComReg, there are few better placed for the job. She qualified as a solicitor in 1998, and is an expert in both Irish and European regulatory law. She has a masters in law from Universität Passau in Germany, along with her credentials as a qualified mediator.

Stepping into the shoes of Leo Clancy after he departed to take over as CEO of Enterprise Ireland can’t have been easy, but the tech sector is blessed in having Travers in situ. With over 20 years’ experience working in foreign direct investment and a good knowledge of the global tech space, he knows all about how best to position Ireland internationally.

Fitzgerald is a well-known face to many in Ireland, having worked as an RTÉ journalist for nearly two decades. Having turned her deft hand to the start-up scene three-and-a-half years ago, she’s now helping both fledgling and more established entrepreneurs out by leading Scale Ireland, a representative organisation that advocates on behalf of Irish tech companies.

For six years Flynn was at the helm of Facebook Ireland following a role directing EMEA operations for Google. She then moved to Germany for a VP role at then-scaling SoundCloud, and later became COO of Australian start-up Hireup. After that was a move into fintech as COO of insurtech unicorn Zego, though she has since left that position to become a member of the board. She was also on the board of Irish fintech Payslip, and her varied, international career in tech makes her advice highly valuable for scaling teams.

Following a series of Irish tech leadership roles at Google and Dropbox, Gormley went to Berlin to take up the position of COO at challenger bank N26. Then she heard London calling and led B2B software company Setforth as CEO until its acquisition in 2023. Staying in London, Gormley has now moved into climate-tech as COO of Sylvera. The start-up has raised about €100 million to support its carbon data services, and Gormley maintains her position as a key figure in European tech as a board member at Monta, Epidemic Sound and Pleo.

Another famous Cork-based double act, Workvivo founders John Goulding and Joe Lennon are on a roll. Having been acquired by Zoom in a $250 million deal a year ago, they’ve been snapping up new clients left, right and centre. As if that weren’t enough, they recently scored a major win when Workvivo was chosen by Meta as a replacement for Workplace, its online collaborative software solution, which the tech giant is discontinuing.

The co-founding partner of Browne Jacobson’s Dublin office, Kelly has led data compliance programmes for some of the world’s largest social media platforms, as well as indigenous Irish tech companies, particularly those in AI and data analytics. She has also advised on the establishment of EMEA HQs in Dublin. Kelly was recently ranked in the Chambers Europe legal guide 2024 in two categories: technology, media, and telecom information technology, and IP. At present, Browne Jacobson’s Dublin office has 11 lawyers, with plans to expand over the coming years.

A medical device research leader, O’Halloran tends to have his hands in multiple projects. He founded the Translational Medical Device Lab in Galway and also built up the medical device research underway at the Cúram centre. Being a needs-led medtech innovator, O’Halloran is well-positioned at BioInnovate, embedding technologists and entrepreneurs alongside clinicians to see what ideas can be generated. He is also co-lead of Health Innovation Hub Ireland and CSO of his own start-up, Luminate Medical.

It’s so hard to separate the Stripe brothers that we had to have them sharing a slot on this list. Dual-headquartered in Dublin and San Francisco, Stripe has taken its place among the major tech multinationals. One of the most highly valued private companies in Silicon Valley, it has become a global leader in payments processing with clients that include Amazon, Google, Ford, Shopify and Instacart. The company recently revealed it is currently processing approximately $1 trillion a year in payments and, while it experienced a wobble as its valuation halved last year, it rebounded to $65 billion on the back of a recent deal that allows staff to cash out some of their shares.

Upsetting the good citizens of Sligo while leading Eir aside, Lennon has had a pretty flawless rise to the top. Having proved her mettle as Eir’s first female CEO, Lennon moved quickly to cement her position as one of the state’s best business leaders. Currently leading over 2,000 employees at Salesforce Ireland after joining the company a year ago, Lennon is a much liked and respected leader who could well go on to achieve even greater success yet.

“There’s nothing special about me, anybody can do this. It’s all about the right encouragement and having folks to open doors for them,” a modest McCarthy told the Business Post last year.
Despite the humility, McCarthy plays a significant role at Google, where her focus is on the reliability of its global network infrastructure, software and services, product and search. McCarthy also leads the Generation Google scholarship for women in computer science in Ireland, which aims to support young women who want to try a career in tech.

Heading up Analog Devices, the US semiconductor giant that has a large and growing client bases, is no menial task … But Wexford man Vincent Roche has delivered for the firm, and then some. His 11-year tenure as CEO saw the company’s shareholder return climb to 300 per cent, with profits booming to more than $3.8 billion last year and an Irish workforce in excess of 1,500. Outside his success at Analog, the electronic systems graduate also serves on the boards of the Semiconductor Industry Association and the MIT Presidential CEO Advisory Board.

Leonard and his partner Fiona Kelly are looking to do something different with Baseline, a new workspace and community for early-stage tech entrepreneurs. Describing itself as a “hackspace for founders,” the initiative, which is independent of government funding, is focused on developing high-growth breakthrough and breakout tech companies. “We are here for the founders who are following their own path, rather than looking for a playbook. We are open 24/7, and we are an always-on community,” Leonard has said of Baseline. Having founded numerous businesses and backed many others, we’re looking forward to seeing how Baseline progresses.

John O’Dea may be the public face of TechIreland, a not-for-profit that collates data on Irish start-ups, but Nagabhushana is the man in charge of ensuring that everything is working in the background as it should. In addition to his day job, he helps immigrant entrepreneurs form closer links with the tech community here. He recently organised a gathering with the Irish Brazilian Alliance, Ireland India Business Association and United for Changes. It is hoped the event will become a regular fixture.

One of many tech community leaders ensuring Ireland’s innovation ecosystem isn’t concentrated in the capital, Rodgers leads PorterShed, the hub for tech companies establishing in the west. Having spent 16 years helping Irish companies to enter the US market through her own business, Rodgers joined Galway City Innovation District (GCID) as a community manager and ‘entrepreneur amplifier’ in 2016, just before the establishment of PorterShed. She eventually became CEO of GCID, and PorterShed grew to encompass three buildings in Galway city.

A long-serving and founding team member of Dogpatch Labs, Axt has evaluated thousands of start-ups in his time and even designed some of the masterclasses on the NDRC programme. He developed the monthly ‘First Fridays’ events for start-ups, and his most significant achievement for entrepreneurs was his role in implementing Dogpatch’s version of Y Combinator’s SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity), adapted for Irish law, as part of the NDRC accelerator terms.

Blanchfield has had the kind of success most entrepreneurs dream of, having founded multiple successful companies, including DemonWare and PageFair. He now offers mentorship and guidance for aspiring entrepreneurs and has also established the invite-only Techpreneurs meet-up. Last year, he was entrepreneur-in-residence at Dogpatch and this year he ran the first cohort of the 2024 NDRC accelerator. He has also suggested plans to launch an IoT accelerator and lab.

After starting, growing and selling a SaaS health-tech business, Browne took up entrepreneur-in-residence roles at Catalyst and Ignite, two Belfast-based start-up support networks. Now based in Dublin with Dogpatch, he continues his support of Irish start-ups through NDRC, which now connects regional hubs across the country. He also had a hand in Invest NI’s new Founder Labs accelerator programme.

The latest aspect in the multifaceted career of Cahalane is a venture partner role with Sure Valley Ventures where he will lead its new Cork office. As well as a number of roles in Irish tech successes such as Trustev and Teamwork, Cahalane is himself a serial entrepreneur and founder of Republic of Work, Cork’s innovation hub. No surprise then that he was until recently also involved with leading partnerships and events for Dogpatch Labs.

Mark Cummins sold not one but two businesses to Google – Plink and Pointy – and since then he acts as both an investor and advisor to entrepreneurs seeking similar success. At Dogpatch, Cummins has served as an entrepreneur-in-residence and has been called on as a mentor for start-ups and founders passing through its programmes. He’s also a Scale Ireland board member, campaigning for policy change to better support those who follow the entrepreneurial path.

Athlete-turned-entrepreneur Fogarty founded workplace wellbeing platform PepTalk in 2017 based on knowledge she gleaned leading HR for the likes of Twitter and Blizzard. She took the bold step of leaving her own company in 2022 and is now sharing her experience with other early-stage founders at Dogpatch. Fogarty is also a founding board member of SERI, a representative body for social enterprises in Ireland.

O’Regan Kenny has already appeared in the Connected 30 Under 30 but his prowess as a people-connector and innovator on the scene warrants a second listing in our Tech 100. At just 21, he already bears the mantle of ‘serial entrepreneur’ and his engineering sensibilities ensure he is a keen builder of both products and communities. He has played an instrumental role in Dogpatch’s youth accelerator programme, Patch, and later served as its entrepreneur-in-residence.

Walsh founded Dogpatch Labs in 2014 to provide an affordable collaborative space for start-ups. A decade on, Dogpatch has become a world-renowned start-up hub and a fertile pot from which the likes of Intercom, Instagram, Twilio and more have grown. Not one to rest on his success, Walsh has continued to drive Dogpatch on to bigger and better things, such as kicking off a novel ‘founder accelerator’ programme last year.

Named one of Europe’s Top 50 Inspiring Women in technology, Coughlan has over 25 years of experience in running and scaling technology companies, including successful realisations through IPOs and M&A, and is a force to be reckoned with. Based in Dublin, she was previously co-founder and director of Glonav, a GPS company that was acquired by NXP for $110 million. She served as CFO and vice president of finance for three successful technology IPOs − Parthus, Iona and Smartforce – that realised more than $5 billion in value for investors. Coughlan is currently on the board of Atlantic Bridge portfolio companies FieldAware, WellAir and Swrve.

Flynn, along with Debbie Rennick and John O’Sullivan, leads Act, the first Irish venture capital firm to successfully transition its management team. Founded in 1994, the company has an impressive portfolio, having backed many of the leading Irish tech companies. Among the startup’s it has previously invested in are Movidius, Cubic Telecom, and most recently, Spectrum.Life.

Along with Brian Martin and Kieran McLoughlin, Foy has brought wealth and fame to the Irish start-up industry, with private equity firm VentureWave Capital boasting half of U2, Liam Neeson, a former Taoiseach and several impressive business leaders as part of its investors and advisors. From the start, the plan was to launch a fund focused on Environment, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) and they have been true to their word. Such is the success of their €100 million Impact Ireland fund, they secured a deal with Bank of America to launch a similar US fund.

McClafferty knows what it takes to launch a company – after all she’s done it. She co-founded and led online fashion marketplace Covetique, which was acquired by Asos in 2015. Since then she’s turned her sights to venture capital and she currently leads Molten Ventures’ Dublin office. The listed tech firm, which is a big backer of Irish start ups, has an impressive track-record, which is in no small part due to McClafferty’s commitments.

Elkstone has gained a formidable reputation in recent years after backing tech unicorns such as Flipdish and LetsGetChecked at a point when few investors would give them the time of day. A few duds aside, its portfolio is impressive. With a strong venture team that includes Niall McEvoy, Martin Cass and Barry Brennan, the firm has been busy backing lots of early-stage entrepreneurs of late as it deploys from its €100 million fund with investments in the range of €1 million to €2 million.

Having spearheaded Mastercard’s start-up scheme for over 250 fintechs, Neale’s 20 years in tech led her to Dublin venture capital firm Delta Partners in 2022. With a passion for “underestimated” companies, she is driven by improving inclusivity in the tech world. Backing from Bank of Ireland, Fexco and Enterprise Ireland has enabled Delta to give a hand to early-stage firms during a turbulent time for the industry.

Frontline is having quite the year. It was recently name-checked by Stripe’s John Collison and in March it announced it had raised $200 million across two funds to help B2B software companies to scale on both sides of the Atlantic. Prendergast co-founded the VC firm along with William McQulllan and Shay Garvey in 2012 and it has gone on to back a considerable number of great Irish tech firms. Special mention is needed for Stephen McIntyre, who formerly led Twitter’s Irish operations, and who, along with Brennan O’Donnell, set up Frontline Growth, which focuses on later-stage US firms expanding into Europe.

Herlihy would deserve a spot on our list for his time at Google alone. A man with significant experience in the tech sector, he held several leadership positions at tech companies such as First Data, Oracle and Adobe, before becoming head honcho at Google Ireland. The Limerick native grew the tech giant’s Irish operation from 50 employees to more than 2,500 staff during his tenure. Herlihy then went on to join LinkedIn as its VP and managing director for EMEA as it scaled, stepping back from that role three years ago. Since then he’s been guiding other companies, not least as a director at OpenAI, which is developing a significant operation in Ireland, and as chairman of StatSports, the Newry-headquartered firm.

Creely burst onto Ireland’s entrepreneurial scene with a bang in 2009 with Trilogy Technologies, a leading IT managed services company acquired by Arkphire in 2020. Creely continued to play a critical role after the deal went through, staying on as managing director until June 2021. Since then she has used her significant experience serving as a director at Auxilion and as chair of IP Telecom. In addition, she is a member of the Enterprise Ireland Investment Committee and of Ibec’s National Council.

Mitchell was already a well-known name in the semiconductor space before he co-founded Movidius, the computer vision hardware company acquired by Intel in a €350 million deal. He’s kept busy since then, serving as chair of both MoveAhead, the analytics start-up, and Ubotica. Mitchell is also chief commercial officer at the latter, a space tech firm that is at the heart of semi-autonomous satellite systems. With a big partnership with IBM having worked on projects through partners such as NASA and the European Space Agency, the future looks bright for Ubotica.

Although it was their Trinity research budget drying up that spurred Annraí O’Toole and Chris Horn into setting up Iona Technologies in 1991, money was the last thing on O’Toole’s mind. “If you start off as an entrepreneur thinking about the cash that’s in it for you, then you’re doomed to failure,” he said in a 2001 interview. Either way, he’s managed alright since. The tech veteran followed Iona with Cape Clear Software, which was acquired in 2008 by Workday, and where he continued to serve as CTO until 2018. Four years after founding Utmost, the HR software start-up was snapped up by Beeline in 2022, with O’Toole serving as CIO of the Florida-based company ever since.

Keogh is equal parts engineer and entrepreneur, and a complete advocate for open innovation. That spirit is imbued in all his ventures: design-thinking consultancy Sapien Innovation, prototyping accelerator The Rapid Foundation, and Team OSV, a collaborative effort to design and develop an open-source ventilator during the pandemic. His passion is leveraging technology for good, and doing so sustainably and collaboratively. You’re as likely to find him getting hands-on at a hackathon as in a start-up hub offering advice and mentorship.

McKenna is not only a successful founder and investor, she is also one of the brains behind Awaken Hub and its funding arm, Awaken Angels. The cross-border female founder network, which was set up four years ago, is behind SheGenerate, the only all-island accelerator programme for early-stage women entrepreneurs. Its funding arm, meanwhile, is a syndicate that is investing in women-founded businesses.