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Sean Blanchfield is CEO and Co-Founder of Jentic, an enterprise AI-enablement platform. He is a serial technology entrepreneur and software engineer, previously co-founding Phorest, Demonware, and PageFair. Demonware was acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2007, where it continues to develop and operate mulitiplayer for the Call of Duty video game franchise. PageFair was an adtech company that focused on ad sustainability and helping global publishers deal with ad blocking (acquired by Blockthrough in 2018). Sean is also a member of the Irish government’s AI advisory council.

Elaine Brennan is the Executive Director, Global Strategic Partnerships at Northwell Health where she has responsibility for developing collaborative and strategic relationships and has created innovative new programs at Northwell. Ms. Brennan originally joined Northwell Health to create the Pharma Ventures group and led the innovative approach to managing and developing collaborative and strategic relationships with the pharmaceutical/ biotech and device industry to establish Northwell as a premier destination for clinical research, health outcomes and digital innovation.

Albane Bruyas is the COO of Scaleway, driving its record-breaking growth as Europe’s leading AI cloud provider. Managing global operations, supply chain, and customer care, she ensures seamless and sustainable scalability for all Scaleway servers and hardware, across 12 global data centers. Under her leadership, Scaleway has deployed one of the European cloud’s largest AI infrastructures, with 5,000 GPUs already active. With a background at L’Oréal and LVMH, Albane blends precision, rigor, innovation, and business impact.

Stuart Brydson is a seasoned technology executive with more than 35 years of experience at some of the world’s most influential enterprise software companies, including Siebel Systems, Oracle, and most recently, ServiceNow.

As Founder and Director of Beachhut PR, Ireland’s leading tech PR company, Paul drives innovative communications strategy for a wide variety of tech companies in multiple verticals and geographies. He is known as one of the best connectors in the Irish tech ecosystem and has mentored over 150 startups through the NDRC Launchpad, DCU Ryan Academy, and Dogpatch Labs.

Paul is an accomplished host of many tech-related events both in Ireland and around the world, from the Irish Internet Awards and the Data Science Awards in Dublin to Vizions in Berlin and Ireland Week in Los Angeles. He has also delivered innovative marketing strategies at international trade shows such as the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Colin Hunt was appointed Chief Executive Officer of AIB and an Executive Director on the AIB Board in March 2019.  He joined AIB in August 2016 as Managing Director, Wholesale, Institutional & Corporate Banking Division.

Prior to joining AIB, he was Managing Director at Macquarie Capital where he led the development of its business in Ireland.  Previously, he was a Special Policy Adviser at the Departments of Transport and Finance, Research Director and Chief Economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers, Head of Trading Research and Senior Economist at Bank of Ireland Group Treasury and a country risk analyst at NatWest.

He has a PhD in Economics from Trinity College, Dublin and degrees in Commerce & Economics from University College, Cork. He served as a Non-Executive Director of Aer Lingus Group plc from 2008 to 2014. Colin is a Board member of The Ireland Funds, Ireland Chapter, and was President 2021/2022 of the Institute of Bankers in Ireland.

Mark was appointed as an Executive Director in Enterprise Ireland in January 2026
and is responsible for the organisation’s sectoral and client solutions work,
overseeing the delivery of a broad range of services and supports for the diverse
enterprise base.

Enterprise Ireland’s ambition is that Irish exporters will become the primary driver
of the Irish economy, and Mark’s priority is to support the organisation’s client
base to achieve their innovation, sustainability and productivity goals, while
harnessing new solutions, including digitalisation and AI.

A University College Dublin graduate with an MBS from the UCD Michael Smurfit
Graduate Business School, Mark has held a number of leadership roles across the
organisation since joining in 2002.

He has a strong track record in leading divisions focused on supporting Irish
enterprises to grow and scale, including Food & Sustainability, Regions and
Entrepreneurship. Mark has also held a number of leadership roles in the
organisation working across client development and human resources.

Mark is a GAA & Sports fan, and lives in Dublin with his wife and three children.

Mike Krenn is the Managing Director of Prebys Ventures, a $50M first time fund with several unique characteristics. It invests across all of life sciences and tech, but only invests in San Diego companies. The fund also operates without the standard 20 percent carry – so all of the returns get reinvested right back into San Diego. We know of no other fund of its kind. It’s designed to be evergreen, to give back in perpetuity to the region.

Previously, Mike was CEO of the San Diego Venture Group and Connect. He’s been a regional leader in San Diego for decades, leading a mission to thoughtfully grow the innovation economy – for the benefit of future generations.

Mike has been instrumental influencing VCs to proactively seek out Southern California companies for investment. His efforts have been central to transforming San Diego’s venture economy from a $1B annual market, to one that now attracts $5B annually.

During his career, Mike has been fortunate to work with thousands of startups, helping more than 100 companies raise angel and venture capital, in excess of $1B. He’s read a LOT of decks, advised a great many entrepreneurs, and drank a lot of coffee. He also has experience (and empathy) with start-ups, having worked as COO at a venture-backed tech start-up.

Mike was a founder of San Diego’s first and largest angel fund network (NuFund), San Diego’s first accelerator (Evonexus), and what may be the country’s first regional philanthropic fund (TLFund.org).
He’s sadly lost a step on the hoops court in recent years, but can still score on his kid, which is really what matters.

A career of innovation at the intersection of technology, media and democracy. Now writing and speaking about human agency in the age of superhuman technology and geopolitical chaos. Was CEO & co-founder of Kinzen, which supported Trust and Safety teams (and was acquired by Spotify). CEO and founder of Storyful (acquired by News Corp). Worked as Twitter’s VP for Media in Europe and ran its international HQ in Dublin. Former TV news anchor & foreign correspondent, and author of three books about US politics and international affairs.

Fidelma McGuirk is the CEO and founder of Payslip, a technology company delivering enterprise grade global payroll control, integration and AI automation.

With 20+ years’ experience scaling international business and leading multinational teams across global HR & IT functions, McGuirk identified the need for a technology solution to help multinational employers standardize and centrally manage their global payroll operations. 

Payslip was founded in Westport, Ireland in 2016 and now has offices in Dublin, Bulgaria and Spain, serving a global customer base.

Brian O’Rourke is CEO and co-founder of CitySwift, an Irish-based intelligent transport data platform that helps public transport authorities and operators to deliver dynamic services that are ultra-efficient and reliable. CitySwift’s customer base features some of the world’s largest public transport bodies, including Go-Ahead Group, Transport for London, Transport for Greater Manchester, National Express Group, Translink, and Bus Éireann.

Rob O’Shaughnessy, known as Rob Shocks on YouTube (youtube.com/robshocks), leverages over 20 years of experience in start-ups and Fortune 500 product development to educate a community of over 40,000 builders on harnessing AI for software development. Through his platform, switchdimension.com, he offers a comprehensive suite of courses and resources designed to teach individuals how to build AI Apps and Agents using AI.