SEAI Board

Appointed August 2020

Dermot's background is in utility engineering and management. He was CEO of EirGrid through its initiation and growth phase, from 2005 to 2012. Prior to that he served as Head of ESB Networks. Since retiring from EirGrid, Dermot has served on a number of Boards, including that of Element Power - a wind development company. He currently chairs an Irish overseas development agency, VITA, with a strong focus on rural communities and climate action in East Africa.

Dermot is a Fellow of Engineers Ireland and served as its president in 2016 / 17. On behalf of DCENR (now DCCAE) he chaired an expert group to develop a national Energy Research Strategy. The report of the group, Energy Innovation Ireland was published in 2016.

Appointed January 2021.

William Walsh, William Walsh is Chief Executive Officer in SEAI, having previously held the position of both Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer. William joined SEAI in 2013. Prior to joining SEAI he worked for IFI where he held a number of roles including Assistant Chief Executive Officer and Director. Prior to that he held senior management positions in the private sector. William is a Chartered Accountant, holds a Bachelor of Business Studies from Dublin City University, holds a Graduate Diploma in Strategy, Innovation and Change from UCD and holds a Diploma in Company Direction from the IOD.

Sharon O’Connor (appointed 1 September 2020), is a Fellow and Chartered Director of the Institute of Directors with over twenty-five years senior leadership experience. A Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel Development, she is also professionally qualified in Marketing. She recently completed a 5yr. term as Chair of the Education Authority NI, a regional organization employing 44,000 with a budget of £2bn. Formerly Chief Executive of Derry City Council, she has a strong interest in local government and she served on the Accounts Commission for Scotland and the National Oversight and Audit Commission. Sharon is a NED with the NI Transport Holding Co. (Translink) and David MacBrayne Ltd (CalMac). Previous and current work spans the private, public, and community/voluntary sectors as a business owner and consultant. She is particularly interested in community planning, regeneration, and innovation in the public sector.

Ann (appointed 14 July 2017, reappointed 14 July 2022), is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland and an experienced business leader, committee chair and non-executive director. She has extensive experience in the electricity industry and was a senior executive with ESB and with Greencoat Capital, a leading renewable energy investment company. Her experience spans traditional electricity businesses as well as investing in low carbon technology and renewable energy companies. She is an independent non-executive director of Foresight Solar Fund Limited, a FTSE 250 company, which invests in utility scale ground-based solar PV and battery storage assets in the UK, Spain, and Australia. She is also a non-executive director of Velocys plc, an AIM listed, UK-headquartered international sustainable fuels technology company. She was a member of the Audit & Risk Committee of the HSE until March 2023. She was appointed to the Board of the Land Development Agency in November 2022.

Andrew is Renewable Energy Director with Bartra Capital, which has investment activities in several areas in the Irish infrastructure market including, housing, healthcare, commercial property and renewable energy. He is a Chartered Accountant and holds a B.Comm and M.Acc from U.C.D. Andrew has over 16 years’ corporate finance experience in the Irish infrastructure market, specialising in energy and renewable energy. Andrew has previously worked for the NewERA Unit of the National Treasury Management Agency which was established to provide corporate finance advice to the Irish Government in relation to the management and disposal of State assets and investment in key economic infrastructure, and with NCB Corporate Finance
(now part of Investec Ireland), specialising in infrastructure mergers and acquisitions, valuations and fundraising.

Léan is Digital Property and Cities Leader for Europe at Arup. She has over 20 years of professional experience in the industry which includes working with a variety of clients from city and national governments to private developers, and on a variety of projects involving extensive strategy and policy work on the application of smart technologies. Recent project work includes digital strategy and policy work for the Danish and Singaporean governments, the Greater London Authority, Dublin City Council, Sydney, Canberra and major masterplanning projects in Madrid, Singapore and Dubai.    

In this evolving field she has been active in working with research institutes and industry bodies to set international standards and research agendas, including the British Standards Institute and Cambridge University's Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction. She is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at University College London in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy and an external examiner at the Royal College of Art in London.

Joe O‘Carroll (appointed 28 February 2019) Joe has over 25 years’ experience in the Energy, Sustainability, Forestry and Digital Technologies sectors.  He has worked in Ireland, the UK, USA, Africa, and the Balkans.  An Agricultural Science Graduate from UCD, he has an MBA (UCC) and a Diploma in Company Direction (Institute of Directors).  He has completed executive training programmes at the IMI Dublin and the Kennedy School at Harvard. Having founded, scaled, and sold his own renewable energy business between 2008 and 2017 he has held senior management positions covering areas such as general management, strategy, commercialisation, sales & marketing, and fundraising. Joe was General Manager of a series of Innovation Hubs in the Mid-East Region, including MERITS - a hub for Tech StartUps, and the Equine Innovation Hub at the Irish National Stud from 2020-2022. He is currently Investment Director at Gresham House, a London Stock Exchange listed, speciality asset manager, where he runs the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund. He holds board positions with Treemetrics - a SaaS business based in Cork, Fairways and FunDays - Europe's leading Golf Tour operator, and Lochlann Enterprises - a technical consultancy business in the Pharma sector.

Justina Corcoran (appointed 7 May 2020) currently holds the position of Head of Retail Energy Policy and Regulation at the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. She has over 25 years’ professional experience, in the public sector, across a broad and varied number of Departments. As the former Head of Internal Audit in the Department she understands and is passionate about promoting and ensuring that a strong and effective system of Governance and Internal Control exists and flourishes within an Organisation. In recent years, Justina completed the ACCA Professional Accounting qualification achieving 1st place in Ireland (2nd worldwide) on the Governance Risk and Ethics professional level paper and 1st Place in Ireland (8th Place Worldwide) on the Advanced Corporate Reporting Professional level paper. She has also held leadership roles in relation to National Projects such as Climate Adaptations, Sustainable Development Goals, and the National Postcodes System (“Eircodes”).

Robert's background is in utility management and regulation, asset management and management consulting.  On the utility side, he held various senior management roles in ESB and ESB International, both in Ireland and overseas.  He was responsible for transitioning Northern Ireland Electricity into new ownership following its acquisition by ESB, then becoming an Executive Director. Previous board work includes as an NED at Drogheda Port, and two terms as Chair of Lagan Valley Regional Park in Northern Ireland.  In consulting, he led KPMG's Strategy and Performance Improvement practice in Ireland, and went on to found Watershed Consulting, which became a leading boutique consultancy and interim management provider. Robert is an MBA alumnus of the Smurfit School at UCD, and is a Chartered Director.  He is a member of both the Institute of Directors, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology in the UK.

Maria (appointed 17 June 2022), is Head of Asset Management with Uisce Eireann and a Chartered engineer with over 20 years’ experience in the engineering and utility sector.  She is an effective and strategic leader, with a keen focus on delivering through empowering people. In her career to date Maria has held a number of senior management roles in both Gas Networks Ireland and Uisce Eireann where she had responsibility for delivering large multifaceted programmes and national transformations. Maria has a Research Master’s degree in Engineering Science augmenting her primary degree in Electronic Engineering (University College Dublin). Maria also holds Postgraduate Diplomas in Supply Chain Management (University College Cork), Business and Executive Coaching (Smurfit Business School) and a Diploma in Company Direction (Institute of Directors). Maria previously served as a Director on the Board of Irish Water.

Barry is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Computing at Dublin City University. He has worked and published across a wide variety of fields, with a special focus on the interdisciplinary application of complex systems science. He has recently led research projects investigating the potential role of negative emissions technologies in Ireland, the application of multi-gas greenhouse gas budgets in national climate action scenarios, and the use of open access software and datasets in developing deep decarbonisation scenarios for the Irish energy system. He has held various senior roles in DCU including serving as Faculty Executive Dean, and as a member of DCU’s Academic Council, Senior Management Group, and University Executive Committee. He is a member of the Engineers Ireland Energy, Environment and Climate Action Division, serving as Division Committee Chair for 2021-2023.

Ciarán Hayes is Principal of Ciarán Hayes Consultancy Ltd., a consultancy established in 2021 providing strategic advice to the public and private sector.  Over a long Local Government career across five Local Authorities, he has 21 years senior management experience culminating as Chief Executive of Sligo County Council.  While Chief Executive, he established the Climate Action Regional Offices (CARO) and governance structure facilitating the management of Local Government’s sectoral challenges and opportunities arising from the circular economy, sustainability, and climate change.  He completed a Harvard University Senior Fellowship in December 2022 researching climate change, holds a BA Degree in Local Government and Higher Diploma in Computer Studies.  The Senior Fellowship followed earlier periods of study in Harvard, Boston College and Irish College, Leuven, Belgium.  He was appointed a member of the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) in July 2021.