Seamus Osbourne - Vice Chairperson
Seamus has worked in the Contact Centre industry for more than 10 years. He joined VHI Healthcare in January 1999 and has worked in a number of roles within the contact centre as Advisor, Team Leader and Operations Leader.Prior to his current role, Seamus worked within the contact centre as training and development coordinator. The role involved the development of a training plan for 150 plus people whose duties varied from contact centre advisor up to the contact centre manager.
Seamus’s current role as Contact Centre Manager for customer service and individual business involves delivering on key performance indicators to ensure best in class customer experience standards to a membership in excess of 1.4 million members. An acknowledgment of the focus on service and the customer by Seamus and his team was the achievement of VHI Healthcare winning ‘The Best Customer Service Delivery’ award in the 2009 CCMA Awards.
Seamus’s third level educational background is in the area of Human Resource Strategies from the Dublin City University. Seamus also holds a Bachelor of Business Studies Marketing Degree from the Institute of Technology Carlow. Seamus is also a member of CIPD and IITD.
Dorothy O'Byrne - Managing Director
Dorothy has over 12 years experience within the Irish and UK contact centre industry. Prior to setting up her own business, Dorothy worked with a number of leading outsourced contact centre providers within Ireland. She spent over 8 years as Vice President of Sales and Marketing with the ICT Group, a leading global business process service provider.She was previously a board member of the Irish Direct Marketing Association and founder of the Young Direct Marketing Association. Dorothy holds a Masters in Strategic International Marketing from Dublin City University.
Padraic Flood - Board Member
Pádraic has recently joined Service Source, the technology market share leader in Service Revenue Performance solutions, as a Senior Account Manager.Prior to his current position he worked for ICT Group, a leading global business process service provider, where he enjoyed a variety of roles including Operations Manager and Account Director and Sage Ireland, where we worked as a Sales Manager within the Small Business Division. He has over 13 years experience in the Sales and Service sector, working across many different industry verticals including financial services, telecoms, utilities and IT. Pádraic holds an Hons Degree in English from UCG.
Annette Hickey - Board Member
Annette joined Vodafone as Head of Customer Operations in September 2009. She has recently moved within Vodafone to Head of On Line & Social Media. Prior to this she enjoyed a successful career in eircom which spanned ten years in the Marketing, On-line and Call centre environments. Under Annette’s leadership eircom TSS was recognised as a best in class call centre winning best EMEA and then World Contact centre in 2006, as well as 6 awards in the Irish Contact Centre Awards in 2004, 2006 and 2007.
Prior to eircom, Annette spent 5 years in FMCG as Brand Manager for Avonmore Cheese, Kilmeaden and Yoplait in Glanbia.
Annette holds a Marketing Degree with the MII and a Masters in Management, Organisational Behaviour with Trinity College.
Tracy Kennedy - Board Member
Tracy Kennedy, BSc, MBA Accounting and Finance, Is currently an Executive Consultant at the Dublin Business Innovation Centre, providing strategic advice and business planning assistance to start-up companies who are seeking investment and support to grow their business successfully. Tracy also provides strategic support and advice to organisations undergoing transformation programmes particularly in the areas of customer operations, new product development and strategic contact centre management.
Tracy is an experienced senior executive who has operated at Director/COO level within the private and semi state sectors in Ireland and the UK. Tracy has over 15 years’ experience in delivering large scale strategic change programmes for organisations and has a proven track record in contributing to market share and customer balance sheet growth through new product development and ‘right fit’ commercialisation strategies. Tracy was part of the senior team involved in the evolution of UPC from a basic cable operator to a fully-fledged triple play provider. Tracy also programme managed ‘The Big Switch’ Bord Gais Energy’s launch into the residential electricity market and went on to deliver an enhanced suite of service propositions to the residential market through Bord Gais Energy Home team.
In addition Tracy has over 6 years’ experience in the General Insurance sector, both Domestic, International, having worked with a number of multi-national brands, Chubb Insurance and Aviva.
Tony O'Brien - Board Member
Tony is Deputy Executive Director of EENA (European Emergency Number Association), a Brussels-based NGO who are pursuing excellence for citizens when dealing with emergency communications when using the pan-European emergency number, 112.
Prior to this Tony headed up the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) responsibilities in monitoring the finances and quality of service of the Emergency Call Answering Service (ECAS). He also held senior managerial roles with Repak, a private sector packaging recycyling compliance scheme and with Aer Lingus in Dublin, Continental Europea and the UK for over 12 years.
Tony brings an extensive portfolio of operational, financial and managerial experience and will be responsible for Government Services as well as Head of Finance for the CCMA. He has a business qualification from CIT, an MBA from Henley Management College in London, a Diploma in Business Finance from IMI and a PRINCE2 project management qualification from QA-IQ.
Dan Kiely - Board Member
Dan has over 20 years experience of contact centre management. Dan began his career in Sales and Marketing, initially working in the national and specialist press. In 1992 he joined Pageboy Communications as Sales Manager and was soon promoted to the role of General Manager.With Dan’s strong entrepreneurial skills and his forward thinking he purchased Pageboy Communications with Linda Green in 1995 and in 2005 they renamed the company VoxPro to reflect the changing communications industry.
As CEO of VoxPro Dan’s key responsibilities include managing the business, to ensure client relationships are maintained and built upon, new business opportunities are sourced domestically and internationally, building and implementing strategies, building a suitable culture for employees, setting the company's future direction, overseeing operations and building the right team to manage a rapidly growing business.
Dan is a Director of EMMA (European Mobile Messaging Association) and Associate Director of AAPC (American Association of Paging Carriers). Dan is currently undertaking the Leadership 4 Growth module at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Helena Cooney - Board Member
Helena joined FBD Insurance as Head of Operations and Sales in 2006. Initially responsible for the successful set up and implementation of the company’s Support Centre she is now responsible for Sales, Retention and Customer Service delivery to FBD’s phone channel and also for the provision of telephony sales and service support to the FBD retail network and web channel. Prior to joining FBD Helena spent 18 years working in the Life, Pensions and Investment industry and has held senior management roles in the delivery of technical sales support to the bancassurance subsidiary within AIB and also in the delivery of Strategic Project and Change Management initiatives.
Helena is a QFA (FLIA) from UCD Institute of Bankers in Ireland, holds a Graduate Diploma in Strategy and Management from University Limerick as well as a Diploma in Financial Management and Control.