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26 June 2024 | St Georges Market, Belfast
26 June 2024 | St Georges Market, Belfast
Stay up to date with all the latest announcements, offers, exclusive content and more.
Alan is a dynamic digital producer and creator, as well as the founder of Inspiring Belfast, which has generated over 100 million video views across social media platforms.
Recently recognized as one of the top 100 creators in the UK by the BBC, Alan is also an official ambassador for TikTok UK.
Alan has garnered global media attention through his brand activations. His recent red carpet video generated 60 million views, underscoring his authority in the digital space.
Dedicated to building strong client relationships and creating widely resonating content, Alan has collaborated with renowned brands such as Tourism NI, Stena Line, and SPAR NI, bringing creativity and excellence to each project.
Alistair MacFarlane is the founder and visionary CEO of Sugar Rush, a leading app and software agency celebrated for its innovative solutions and client-centric approach. With an impressive 25 year career in the tech and creative design industry, Alistair has spent the past 21 years driving Sugar Rush’s growth and transformation through the fast-paced evolution of the tech industry.
Under Alistair’s leadership, Sugar Rush has grown from a small startup into a trusted and established agency in the app and software development sector. The company’s strategic direction and commitment to excellence have propelled significant advancements in its product offerings, market reach, and industry recognition throughout Ireland and the UK.
Sugar Rush has received numerous awards, including multiple Best App of the Year projects, Best in Digital Transformation, Best UK App Agency of the Year and has been listed among the top 100 global app agencies. Known for fostering a culture of creativity and collaboration, Alistair has built a team of top-tier experts dedicated to pushing the boundaries of design, development, and technology.
Andrew Trimble is a proven leader with a unique background, combining 15 years of experience as an international athlete with a strong interest in community and charity engagement both locally and nationally.
By empowering athletes with the scheduling and athletic planning tools at Kairos Sports Technology, Andrew and his team are dramatically optimising the performance of elite sports teams.
Beth Glenfield is an experienced product leader and tech startup founder with a strong focus on innovation and impactful connections.
Starting from an engineering background, Beth transitioned to product leadership, bringing over eight years of experience in the enterprise B2B software space. In 2024, she founded a tech startup to transform how data is stowed across various communication channels.
At Founder Labs, Beth guides Northern Irish startups, helping them achieve their potential. She is committed to fostering growth in the tech ecosystem by investing in local startups and supporting women founders through Ada Ventures and her past involvement with Women Who Code.
Beth is always open to sharing insights and exploring opportunities in the dynamic world of technology and innovation.
Calum is the Talent Acquisition Partner at Texthelp, the global leader in the development of literacy and accessibility software, plays a crucial role in the organization.
At Texthelp, their mission is to unlock everybody’s full abilities and realize their unique potential. The company creates smart, easy-to-use technology that helps everyone read, write, express their thoughts, and share information more accurately and fluently – whether they are studying, working, or simply going about their daily lives. Texthelp brings together the best technologies from around the world to deliver optimal solutions to its users.
Having first been elected to the Assembly in 1998, Mr Murphy served as Finance Minister between 2020 and 2022 and Minister for Regional Development between 2007 and 2011. He has also been a member of the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.
Mr Murphy was MP for Newry and Armagh between 2005 and 2015.
Cora is a Digital Account Director at Genesis, an award-winning advertising agency in Belfast. With over 10 years’ industry experience, her role at Genesis is to turn clients’ ideas and aspirations into innovative, engaging, results-driven digital advertising strategies.
With a first-class degree in Communication with PR and broad experience through her career in advertising, marketing and public relations, Cora is adept at integrating online and offline tactics across paid, owned and earned channels to achieve the greatest impact & results.
Cora has launched and promoted websites & apps for international clients including Radaro & Quitch, and currently works with a broad range of brands such as Barista Bar, Irish FA, Invest NI and the Public Health Agency.
At Henderson Foodservice, Chris manages a team of fantastic e-commerce and data focused colleagues to deliver the award winning B2B www.henderson-foodservice.com and B2C Barista Bar digital suite, including the My Barista Bar Rewards+ mobile app.
With 20 years experience working across tech and research in hospitality and culture, Chris’s happy place is where insights and product management naturally crossover. Using customer focused insight, he builds solutions that help drive digital transformation and impactful customer engagement online.
Gareth Burns is a highly experienced software development professional with a comprehensive background that spans all aspects of a technology business, from code creation to executive strategy.
Most recently, Gareth has served as the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of a successful startup, where he built the technical arm of the business from inception to international growth. In 2021, his company secured the largest ever investment for a tech company in Northern Ireland. By 2022, they had established their first international offices in South America, expanding their development function in this new location.
Gareth is known for his pragmatic, transparent, and collaborative approach, understanding the importance of passion, commitment, and clear, honest communication. His contributions to the tech community have earned him a spot as a finalist for Business Personality of the Year at the Digital DNA Awards in Northern Ireland in three of the last four years. Additionally, he founded the .NET Meetup group for Northern Ireland, growing it from three members to several hundred before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gareth is a Northern Ireland-based entrepreneur who has successfully built and exited several businesses during the past decade. This followed an interesting career in the public sector, which saw him fulfil a series of roles – including the organising of elections in Northern Ireland and running the Lord Mayor’s Office in City Hall, Belfast.
In 2018, Gareth co-founded Kairos, which was recently acquired by Teamworks – a global sports technology company headquartered in the US providing a number of technology products that help elite sports teams operate more effectively. As the newly appointed General Manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa for Teamworks, Gareth’s role is to help drive continued growth and success in these markets.
Keavy joined Henderson Foodservice in 2019 as Brand Manager for Barista Bar, Northern Ireland’s largest coffee-to-go brand.
With over 20 years of experience managing quality brands, Keavy is now overseeing the rapid expansion of Barista Bar into Great Britain, where it is now the fourth largest coffee-to-go brand in the UK.
Keavy has always been passionate about developing and nurturing brands she believes in, ensuring they resonate with customers and maintain high standards.
Her expertise, commitment to excellence, and innovative approach have been key to driving the brand’s growth to date.
Keith Lippert has 30 years of experience in financial services and most recently held the position of Vice President and Deputy Chief Information Security Officer at The Allstate Corporation, as Allstate’s inaugural security officer located outside of the United States.
Keith has expertise in financial crime prevention, anti-terrorism, sanctions, money laundering, and fraud prevention. Before joining Allstate, he served as the Legal Chief Operating Officer for Barclays Bank in London and as the Vice President of International Fraud Prevention for American Express. Keith has also held the position of Chairman at banks in Russia, India, Mexico, and Canada and served as an officer of two national banks in the United States.
With over 10 years of experience, John has a proven track record in leading enterprise data strategies within both consulting and client environments.
Having worked globally and led large cross-functional teams, John excels in developing and implementing strategic data initiatives and driving transformative digital strategies.
He is a thought leader in enterprise data, contributing research on data and regulation in capital markets as well as speaking at industry events, sharing insights on data governance, analytics, and strategy.
John is dedicated to transforming strategic data goals into actionable outcomes, ensuring and driving impactful results for organizations.
Liam has worked in the field of sustainability for nearly twenty years across the public, private and voluntary sectors. He has a strong background in management systems and compliance, and has developed and implemented sustainability strategies for a number of leading UK construction firms.
Liam holds a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Management. He believes that SustainIQ has a mission to help organisations become more data-driven by revealing the untapped intelligence that sits waiting to be found within any company.
The software helps to harness business intelligence from sustainability performance to inform business strategy, helping companies become more transparent and encouraging better business
Having worked in the sustainability space for well over a decade, both Maria and her business partner Liam recognised the need for a solution which helped companies to navigate the complexities involved in measuring, monitoring and reporting on their Sustainability and ESG investments. In response, they created SustainIQ, an agile, integrated, real-time reporting tool which calculates a company’s impacts on the environment, local communities, and their people, through their products and supply chain. This data provides organisations with business intelligence that wasn’t previously being considered in strategic decision-making.
Prior to the establishment of SustainIQ, Maria worked with Business in the Community, providing support and advice on CR to the private, public and voluntary sectors. She also holds an MSc in Sustainability and CSR.
She is passionate about harnessing the power of business to positively impact the world and has advocated for long-term partnerships between business and community development organisations since her teens. She has helped with the capacity-building of many charitable and social enterprise organisations both locally in Northern Ireland and in the Developing World.
Michelle Connor is CEO of Kinva, an AI-driven platform transforming the delivery of multi-disciplinary therapy. She is a recent winner of Innovate UK’s prestigious ‘Women in Innovation’ Award, and member of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Talent Engine. Kinva was named by Tech Nation as a ‘Rising Star’ tech company in 2022.
Michelle was formerly a Government Advisor on Health and Economy, and Director of Operations for an international software company. In her spare time, she is UK and Ireland Ambassador for the charity iDefine, which supports families of children with debilitating rare diseases and funds research into ground-breaking treatments.
Mike joined ITV in 2018, initially developing campaigns across both linear TV and partnerships later specialising in ITV’s rapidly developing Video on Demand (VOD) proposition, ITVX. More recently he has been building relationships with a network of Digital Agencies across the UK alongside driving the development and roll out of key ITVX innovations including Matchmaker, ITV’s retail Media solution which launched at the end of 2022, in partnership with Boots and Tesco.
Prior to this Mike worked client side in the Optics and Energy sectors across a variety of roles including Product Development, Brand Management & Trade Marketing
Naomi McGregor is a dynamic and accomplished individual, who is making waves in the technology industry as the founder and CEO of Movetru, a multi-award-winning startup. With a 1st Class Masters in Product Design Engineering from Queen’s University Belfast and a host of international travel scholarships, including training from the prestigious CDIO program at Stanford University, Naomi is well-equipped to lead her team to success.
Her expertise in product development, autonomous vehicles, production, and manufacturing processes, as well as her experience in sales, have been recognized by major industry players such as the Royal Academy of Engineering, Institute of Mechanical Engineers, and Innovate UK, who have all awarded her for her outstanding work.
Naomi’s commitment to professional development is also evident in her Lean Green Belt Team Leader certification from Cardiff University. Additionally, she is an active STEM ambassador and dedicates hundreds of hours to voluntary work and has even published a TEDx Talk. With her impressive background and drive, it is no surprise that Naomi is making a significant impact in the technology industry.
Patrick has been a software engineer for about nineteen years, with nearly half of that time working as a team lead. Most of the first part of his career was spent in the fintech sector, working first in risk management and then the retirement income sector. He is now a team lead in Gearset’s Belfast office, working on their Salesforce DevOps solution using React, TypeScript and .NET core.
Paul has 35 years’ experience working in the Public Sector. His roles included the promotion of innovative UK security solutions to a domestic and business audience.
Paul is a strong advocate of a joined-up approach to cyber security, that includes people, processes and technology all working together. He joined IASME in January 2021 as the Partner Relationship Manager.
Paul is the founder and director of Belfast-based creative marketing agency Life Like Media, who work with some of the biggest brands and athletes in the DTC space delivering performance-focused ad creatives for scaling on paid social.
With a decade of marketing experience and having spent most of his early career in the video content space, Paul set up Life Like Media 4.5 years ago with his brother to service the increasing need for social media ad creatives for scaling DTC brands.
Some notable company highlights include running the paid marketing and creative for Floyd Mayweather, vlogging content with Tommy Fury in Dubai, 1.5 years working with Tyson Fury helping launch his Furocity brand, including covering content at the recent Undisputed fight in Suadi Arabia, as well as building worldwide campaigns for a number of 7 and 8 figure DTC brands including Lumi Therapy, Built For Athletes, The Essence Vault, Lamborghini Wines, and many more!
Paul’s insight and experience have allowed LLM to carve out a unique position in the digital marketing industry, blending real data at scale with creative skill to become one of the top DTC Creative Agencies in the UK and Ireland.
Jonathan Wallace is Professor of Innovation within the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment at Ulster University. His excellence in both Knowledge & Technology Transfer and lecturing has been recognised by his being awarded a Distinguished Business Fellowship and Distinguished Teaching Fellowship.
Jonathan is a founder member and Deputy Chair of the Northern Ireland Science Festival, as well as Chair of the IET/BCS annual Belfast Turing Lecture. He chaired and remains an active member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Policy Group for Northern Ireland and is a member of the All-Party Advisory Group on Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths for the local devolved Government Assembly. He is a member of the BCS NI Committee as well as the BSC NI Computing Education Committee. Given his strong engagement with industry, Jonathan also Chairs the Faculty’s Computing Employer Advisory Board (CEAB).
He has led the development of numerous software systems in diverse market sectors attaining broad experience of managing successful research projects at a local, national and international level. From 2002 to 2018 he was Director of Knowledge and Technology Transfer for the Faculty with direct responsibility for the commercialisation of the Faculty’s research, industrial collaboration and consultancy provision.
He currently has a role in a number of regional, national and research projects where he is particularly applying his expertise in Digital Twins, Data Science, Business Model Development, Co-creation & Stakeholder engagement as well as UX & Usability Engineering.
Rory King is a distinguished travel influencer and the visionary founder behind Rory’s Travel Club. Celebrated as the Travel Influencer of the Year for both 2023 and 2024 in Ireland, Rory has transformed the way people experience travel, both locally and internationally.
Rory’s Travel Club, under his dynamic leadership, has grown into an exclusive community with over 100,000 members. The club offers unparalleled access to exclusive discounts on holidays in Ireland and abroad, making dream vacations more accessible and affordable for its members.
With a passion for uncovering hidden gems and sharing authentic travel experiences, Rory has become a trusted name in the travel industry. His innovative approach and dedication to providing value have set new standards for travel subscriptions, earning him widespread recognition and acclaim.
Rosie is a UK and European Patent Attorney at EIP Europe LLP, a law firm which specialises in managing high value and complex patent matters.
Her clients have included start-ups, SMEs, universities and major corporations. She has spent most of her career in private practice, but with a 2-year stint on part-time secondment within the in-house patents department of a FTSE 100 company.
Her specialist technical expertise lies in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals and prior to joining the patent profession, she obtained a PhD in Biochemistry from Queens University Belfast.
Ruth is the Digital Content Lead at Genesis, an award-winning advertising agency in Belfast. With over 12 years’ industry experience, she applies her vast expertise to creating engaging and effective digital content.
With a degree in Design for Visual Communication and previous career as a Copywriter, Ruth combines the visual and the verbal to craft content that resonates with diverse audiences.
She loves harnessing fresh trends and technologies to benefit clients such as Barista Bar, The Henderson Group (SPAR and EUROSPAR), The Public Health Agency, NI Water, LMC and HSENI, to name few.
Associate Director at MCS Group with overall responsibility for the IT & Digital and Technical & Engineering divisions. An expert within the Northern Ireland recruitment market with a track record of managing large scale recruitment projects including numerous campaigns with FDIs and Start-Up organisations.
MCS Group has established itself as Northern Ireland’s leading specialist recruitment consultancy working across multiple industries: IT & Digital, Technical & Engineering, Professional Services, Accounting & Finance and Executive Search. MCS work with 92% of NI’s top 200 companies, local SME’s, multi nationals, FDI technology centres and major NI manufacturers.
With a career spanning over two decades, Sean Hanna stands at the forefront of security leadership, embodying the fusion of strategic vision and practical expertise.
As a seasoned professional, Sean has navigated the complex landscape of cybersecurity, risk management, and data protection, establishing himself as a trusted authority in the field.
Sean’s journey began with a deep-rooted passion for technology and its potential to shape a safer digital world. His academic pursuits laid a strong foundation, which he built upon with relentless dedication and continuous learning.
Over the years, Sean has held pivotal roles in various high-stakes environments, from financial institutions to multinational corporations, where he designed and implemented robust security frameworks that have withstood the test of evolving threats.
A thought leader and a mentor, Sean is known for his ability to demystify complex security concepts, making them accessible to diverse audiences.
His leadership style is characterised by a collaborative approach, fostering environments where innovation thrives, and knowledge is shared freely.
Sean’s contributions extend beyond his immediate professional circle, as he actively engages in community outreach, advocating for cybersecurity awareness and education.
Palmer, a multi-award-winning CEO and Founder, is globally recognised as a visionary and strategist with a remarkable record in the international business arena. Originally from Northern Ireland, Shirley started her career in the dynamic private equity sector of London, distinguishing herself early on as a leader adept at identifying and leveraging transformative opportunities. Her extensive experience stretches from the financial centres of London to the innovation-driven environments of California, impacting key markets in America, Canada, the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.
At the helm of ShirleyPalmer.com and TheSimpleSeries.com, Shirley advocates for a leadership style that harmoniously integrates solid business strategy with a profound commitment to wellbeing and conscious leadership. This approach not only drives significant business growth but also cultivates environments where creativity, intuition, and emotional intelligence thrive. Shirley’s dedication to incorporating wellbeing into corporate strategy ensures that her leadership not only achieves conventional success but also promotes positive human impact and sustainable development.
Steph focuses on hiring for Global Engineering, Product and Security talent in NI, USA, Canada and Europe. ESO pioneers innovative, user-friendly software to meet the changing needs of today’s EMS agencies, fire departments, and hospitals.
Our Belfast Office has been open since 2019 and we are home to around 150 people with big plans to grow over the next few years. We are home to multiple Product teams, with skilled Engineers, Managers, SDET’s, Product Owners, UX Designers, DevOps Engineers and a Security team.
Terry grew up on a dairy farm and after graduating with an MEng from QUB in 1995 spent the next 9 years working in a Software Architect/Management role for various telecommunications companies e.g. BT around the world including Silicon Valley, Canada and China. His primary role in this time was managing a number of datacomms related projects.
In 2004 he founded FarmWizard, a cloud based software product which allowed livestock farmers to easily maintain legislative and performance records. As the world’s first cloud based livestock management system it attracted the attention of a number of enterprises across the protein supply chain. FarmWizard was acquired in 2025 and now manages over 4.2m animals worldwide.
Terry is the also the founder of Cattle Eye which offers a data-enabled approach to livestock health monitoring solutions improving the lives of farmers and their livestock. This business was acquired in March of this year.
Tom holds over 30 years of diverse IT industry experience and successful experience as a senior leader with responsibility for organisation setup, strategic planning, technology / security strategies and planning, business plan development, product development, customer relationship management and organisational budgets.
Tom is responsible for driving the engineering strategy for Proofpoint Essentials. His team is tasked with delivering cloud-based enterprise-class security for small and medium enterprises including email security, continuity, archiving, and social-media protection.
Proofpoint is a global cybersecurity company that helps protect people, data, and brands against cyber attacks. They offer compliance and cybersecurity solutions for email, web, cloud, and more. Their Northern Ireland office is located in Belfast’s Weavers Court business park, making it one of their largest locations outside the US.
The current Lord Mayor of Belfast, Micky took up office on 3 June 2024. He is the first openly gay Lord Mayor of Belfast.
A member of the Alliance Party, Micky was initially co-opted onto Belfast City Council in May 2022, and retained his seat in the local government election of May 2023.
His background before politics was in the community and voluntary sector, where he worked helping homeless people and those with addiction challenges.
Micky is committed to using his year in office to furthering the goal of making Belfast an inclusive and compassionate city.
