The Corporate Governance Institute’s faculty is led by world-class governance experts who are active in businesses and boards at the most senior levels.
Designed by directors, for directors
Excellence in teaching corporate governance
The Corporate Governance Institute faculty is comprised of world-class business professionals, specialists in corporate governance . Our faculty members have years of industry expertise, coupled with a desire to share their knowledge through teaching the next generation of directors and board members.
In bringing together this wealth of knowledge, you can be sure that you are getting diverse and deep wealth of industry expertise.
Our lecturers, as well as teaching, are professionally involved in all types of businesses, at various levels. This ensures that you are experiencing the latest case studies and learning about the very latest thinking at board level.

Our faculty members have worked with and led world-beating organisations, including:






Meet your faculty members

Ruth Odih
Ruth Odih is a key member of the Secretariat Team at Centrica plc. Her experience is in UK and International corporate governance practices. Her experiences range from large multinationals to large UK-based organisations in catering, energy, oil and gas, private equity and financial services, with some of the organisations being constituents in the FTSE 100 and AIM index. She is a trustee of a local charity and has a Degree and Masters in law.
Sharon Conastançon
Sharon Constançon is an experienced executive and non-executive director. She is CEO of Genius Boards and Genius Methods – the Genius Group, that offers tailored, behaviour and leadership focused board evaluations, training and mentoring services. Sharon is a Chartered Director, Chartered Secretary and has an MBA.


Eoghan Daly
Eoghan is a Director with BDO and leads the firm’s cybersecurity work. His experience includes helping organisations to improve their approach to the identification, assessment and management of cybersecurity risks. His experience includes working with organisations in Mining, Education, Pensions, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Government, and Not-for-Profit sectors. He is a board member of the Royal Society of Public Health’s Food Special Interest Group.
Jenny Pattwell
Jenny Pattwell is a s a Partner with EY’s EMEIA Financial Services Consulting practice in Ireland with over 20 years of experience in the FS industry. She is known for bringing practical insights and fresh perspectives to each assignment, where she focuses on large scale FS transformations, Risk Management, Regulatory Advisory and Data & Analytics.


Mairead Butler
Mairéad Butler is a Chartered Accountant and has spent most of her career in financial services in Dublin and Sydney, working in risk, compliance and communications roles. She is a Director of Ireland’s National Maternity Hospital and An Cosán, a charity focused on education as a pathway out of poverty.
Katie Burke
Katie is Chief Operating Officer at The Corporate Governance Institute where she leads the Product Development, Operations and Talent Development teams. Prior to this, Katie was a senior manager at the Centre for Effective Services where she played a lead role in scaling the organisation, building the team and developing partnerships. Katie also worked in strategy and management consulting in Ireland and France with financial services, healthcare, public sector and non-profit clients. Katie is an experienced NED / board member of national and international organisations and author of many guides on implementation, used in policy and services in Ireland and internationally.


David W Duffy
David is the founder and CEO of the Corporate Governance Institute, an experienced board member, governance consultant and a leading author on corporate governance. David is considered an innovator in governance research and engagement and is an authority on global, board-related matters.
Caitríona Somers
Caitríona spent ten years as the CEO of the Irish subsidiary of Cunningham Lindsey Group and was a member of the executive global leadership team. A chartered director and fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters, she holds several independent director positions within the financial services sector.


Tony McPoland
Tony has twenty-five years of experience in the financial services industry and served ten years on the board of directors of LBBW Bank with executive responsibility for finance, operations, risk and IT. He has become an independent professional director and sits on the boards of eleven companies. He is also a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland.
Diarmaid O’Corrbui
Diarmaid is the CEO of Carmichael, a leading specialist training and support body for nonprofits in Ireland. He is a former executive board director and company secretary and a certified technical corporate governance assessor with the National Standards Authority of Ireland’s Swift 3000 code of practice for corporate governance assessment.


Dr Sean O’Reilly
Seán is an Assistant Professor in Accountancy at University College Dublin and acts as Academic Director of the Masters of Accounting programme at Smurfit Business School. Seán held the role of Head of the Accountancy Department at Technological University Dublin prior to his role at UCD. Seán is a Chartered Accountant having trained and qualified in PwC. Seán has extensive experience lecturing executive education and is a lecturer on the FAE programme for Chartered Accountants Ireland. Seán recently completed his PhD specialising in Entrepreneurial & Green Finance. He has extensive experience as a company founder, director, non-executive director and consultant, including international projects.
Donal Keane
Donal’s primary areas of expertise are corporate finance, strategy development, project management and corporate governance. Donal has served as management consultant to the financial services, technology, retail, property and voluntary sectors. Prior to this he served as a senior executive in the Public Sector. He holds an International Masters in Management Degree from the European School of Management in Paris (ESCP) and an MBA from Purdue University, Indiana.


Bob Semple
Bob Semple has more than 40 years’ business experience working as an accountant, auditor and management consultant.
For 36 years, he worked in PricewaterhouseCoopers where, most recently, he was partner responsible for governance and risk management services. He now works as a director and as an independent consultant – specialising in governance, risk management and board effectiveness reviews. Bob is a science graduate, a Chartered Accountant, a Chartered Director and a Certified Psychometric Evaluator.
Robert Farrell
Global spend on Digital Transformation will exceed $2.3T in 2023 yet 70% of transformation projects fail to achieve their goals according to the Harvard Business Review. Robert is on a mission to improve this by developing the next generation of leaders. He is a lecturer, trainer and speaker specializing in Digital Transformation. Robert has delivered training to audiences including Google, HubSpot, Citibank, DocuSign, Amplexor and many more. He holds a postgraduate diploma in digital transformation, a masters in strategic management and several digital marketing certifications.


Paul White
Paul is a founding member of Ireland’s largest indigenous ICT company DCC Technology. He has held board and senior executive roles for DCC Plc in France, the UK, and Ireland. He is a founding member of the Corporate Governance Association of Ireland (CGAI) and is currently the chair of the Children’s Medical Research Foundation Crumlin.
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