The DBS Innovation Series is an industry-led event designed to give students access to a variety of important topics from industry leaders.
Series 1 covers Leadership and Innovation at the highest level of an organisation and will be co-hosted by Keelin Lee & Rita Day. The guest speakers for this series are Orlaith Blaney (Ervia) and Shane Brett (Gecko), who you can read about in more detail below.
You can access the talk here on the day - https://dbs.zoom.us/my/dbscommonroom2
Guest Speakers Announced:
Orlaith Blaney (Ervia):
Orlaith is the Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Ervia, the commercial semi-state company responsible for Irish Water, Gas Networks Ireland (GNI) and Aurora Telecom. Orlaith is a member of the Ervia Executive leadership team who have responsibility to the Ervia Board for the oversight and governance of GNI and Irish Water, both vital utilities to support the health and well-being of Irish people, and supporting economic growth and development.
She has 23 years proven business and leadership experience in leading businesses with a core skill set in strategic brand communications and has a reputation for getting right to the heart of the business issue and solving it. Her previous role was as CEO of McCann Dublin, part of the global advertising agency network Interpublic Group (IPG). She has held Board positions at the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) where she served as President, Unicef and Guaranteed Irish.
Orlaith believes there is real firepower in creativity but more importantly, in brilliant people. She enjoys collaboration and partnership in business and detests negativity in all its devilish forms. She is a passionate champion for gender equity; was an Honorary Secretary of the International Women’s Forum, was a mentor for the WOW Empowering Women Programme and was on the Advisory Board of the Women’s Executive Network (WXN). Orlaith has a keen interest in strategic communications and optimising and integrating communications disciplines to achieve business outcomes. She is also interested in the discipline of leadership, development of strategy and strategy execution. The area of change management has been a key focus during her career. She has public and private sector experience of the issue and how it affects morale, performance and employee engagement. You will find her on twitter @orlaithblaney
Shane Brett (Gecko):
Shane Brett is one of Europe’s leading FinTech entrepreneurs.
He has created multiple technology companies and consultancies globally and personally raised over $4m from leading institutional and VC investors in the US, Europe, Abu Dhabi, and APAC.
Shane has directly created over US$12m in value for early-stage institutional seed investors - including doubling one FinTech valuation in 8 months - and then again 6 months later.
He has successfully scaled technology businesses globally including into New York, London, Dublin and Sydney. In 2016 one of the technology companies he founded - GECKO Governance - won Europe's largest start up competition (Seedcorn Competition - €50,000 Prize Fund).
Shane has written 3 business & technology books and dozens of technology news articles and white papers. He has been featured in the Financial Times, NASDAQ, Reuters, Forbes & the Irish Times.
Shane has nearly 25 years’ experience in finance, emerging technology, and entrepreneurship - having worked for BNP Paribas, HSBC, Northern Trust, UBS & Aberdeen Asset Management, in Dublin, London, Edinburgh, New York and Sydney.
As well as being a Founding Member of The International RegTech Association (IRTA) and speaking regularly at some of the largest technology conferences in the world (e.g. Consensus NYC), Shane also worked closely for many years with the world’s leading global regulators, including the Irish Central Bank, FCA (UK), SEC (USA & ASIC (Australia).
Shane' recent accomplishments include: -
• Top 10 People to Watch in Blockchain (Ireland) 2018
• Top 100 RegTech Global Influencers
• Published multiple Blockchain & Crypto articles including - Reuters, NASDAQ, the FT, Investing.com
• Raised $1 million in US VC funding for GECKO Governance.
• Top 3 RegTech Power List 2018 - GECKO Governance
• Opened 3 global offices for GECKO Governance (NYC, Ireland & Australia)
• Author - "The Future of Hedge Funds"
• Founding Member of The International RegTech Association (IRTA).
• Chairperson - Blockchain for Funds Conference APAC 2018
• Speaker - Consensus NYC 2018
Shane has published dozens of articles on financial regulation, compliance, blockchain and digital assets. He has been extensively interviewed on multiple radio and TV programs covering blockchain, digital currencies and the development of regulatory compliance & speaks regularly at industry conferences around the world.