18 Leadership Development Leaders in Irish PLCs

Last updated: 9 August 2026

Leadership development is not only the work of a training team. It is also shaped by the people who decide how talent grows, how leaders are supported and how culture becomes visible in daily work. The 18 people below are current people leaders connected to public companies with a strong Irish connection.

I have included leaders whose public remits touch leadership capability, talent, learning, culture, organisation development or people strategy. Some work in Dublin-headquartered groups. Others lead people work for public companies with substantial Irish teams. The common thread is practical responsibility for helping people and organisations grow.

Why these leaders matter.

The best leadership development work connects individual growth with the way the organisation actually operates. That means succession plans, clear expectations, useful feedback, strong managers and real opportunities to take on more responsibility.

It also means resisting the temptation to treat development as a one-off event. A programme matters, but so do the systems around it: the conversations managers have, the work leaders are trusted with and the way progress is noticed.

1. Aisling Zito.

Chief Human Resources Officer, Glanbia.

Aisling Zito is Chief Human Resources Officer at Glanbia. The company says her role carries strategic leadership of Group HR, with a focus that includes talent, organisational development, leadership capability and culture.

Her appointment is a useful reminder that leadership development is often part of the central people brief, not a side project. When capability sits close to the top team, it can be connected to the organisation’s direction, succession needs and the choices leaders make about how work gets done.

2. Ally Byrne.

Head of HR, SIG Ireland.

Ally Byrne is Head of HR at SIG Ireland. SIG Ireland says she joined its Senior Leadership Team after becoming the first graduate of the company’s Leadership Development Programme to progress into that group.

Her story makes the link between a development programme and a real leadership pathway easy to see. The programme did not stand alone as a learning experience. It created a route for internal progression, while Ally’s current work supports the HR strategy and organisation development across the business.

3. Barry McCabe.

Chief People Officer, Hostelworld Group.

Barry McCabe is Chief People Officer at Hostelworld Group. The company’s senior management page describes his background as more than 25 years in human resources, including experience with the Amazon Ireland Leadership Team.

Hostelworld’s public profile places people growth inside a fast-moving, international business. That is a useful lens for development leaders: the question is not only what people learn, but whether the organisation gives them enough responsibility, clarity and support to keep growing as the business changes.

4. Carolyn O'Hara.

Chief HR Officer, FBD Holdings.

Carolyn O’Hara is Chief HR Officer at FBD Holdings. FBD’s profile says she moved into the chief HR role in 2018, after more than 30 years working in insurance, including senior experience with Aviva and Allianz.

That depth of sector experience matters for leadership development in a regulated business. People programmes have to respect professional standards, customer trust and operational discipline. The practical challenge is to build leaders who can protect those foundations while still helping the organisation adapt.

5. Carmen Lothian.

Group Chief Human Resources Officer, Grafton Group.

Carmen Lothian joined Grafton Group as Group Chief Human Resources Officer in January 2026. The company describes her background as including senior HR and transformation positions.

A new group people leader often has to make the organisation’s development choices visible quickly. That means understanding the operating model, finding where leadership capability is strong or thin, and turning a broad people agenda into a small number of choices managers can use.

6. David Ford.

Chief People Officer, Prothena.

David Ford is Chief People Officer at Prothena. Prothena appointed him to the newly created role with responsibility for people, culture and human resources strategy.

The company’s announcement also describes more than 25 years of global HR experience and the need to support Prothena through commercial transition. That is a clear development test: leaders must be prepared for the organisation the business is becoming, not only trained for the organisation it used to be.

7. Dave McCormack.

Chief People Officer, AIB.

Dave McCormack is Chief People Officer at AIB. AIB’s human resources page describes a people function with centres of excellence that include learning and development, alongside wider career opportunities.

That structure shows why development leaders need both a clear offer and a working system. Learning can create insight, but leaders also need good managers, useful career conversations and opportunities to apply new capability. Otherwise, development stays separate from the work people are actually doing.

8. Dawn Wynne.

Chief People Officer, Dalata Hotel Group.

Dawn Wynne is Chief People Officer at Dalata Hotel Group. Dalata describes her remit through talent development, leadership capability and employee engagement, and its people pages describe more than 15 development programmes through the Dalata Academy.

This is a strong example of development designed around a large, operational workforce. The useful question is not whether a company has a programme catalogue. It is whether people at different levels can see a credible next step, receive support from managers and build skills that help them serve customers well.

9. Donna-Maria Lee.

Chief People Officer, Greencore Group.

Donna-Maria Lee became Chief People Officer at Greencore in January 2026. The company’s profile says she previously led the overall HR strategy and people and change agenda at Bakkavor, after earlier global HR work with Burberry.

Her move into Greencore is a useful example of how people leaders carry development experience between organisations. The transferable skill is not a favourite workshop. It is the ability to connect people choices, change work and leadership expectations so the business can grow without losing its centre.

10. Ger Mitchell.

Chief People Officer, Permanent TSB.

Ger Mitchell is Chief People Officer at Permanent TSB. The bank’s executive committee page gives the role responsibility for talent, reward, learning, culture, organisation design and the people experience.

That breadth is important. Leadership development is shaped by what people are rewarded for, how roles are designed and whether the stated culture matches the experience of working there. Strong development work joins those pieces together instead of asking a course to repair a system problem.

11. Jacky Simmonds.

Chief People Officer, Experian.

Jacky Simmonds is Chief People Officer at Experian. Her public remit includes global HR strategy, succession, talent and organisational design.

Those responsibilities place leadership development close to the organisation’s future shape. Succession asks who may be ready next. Organisation design asks what the next role needs to achieve. Talent work connects the two, so development becomes a way to prepare for real business needs rather than a general promise to improve.

12. Joe Cronin.

Chief Human Resources Officer, ICON.

Joe Cronin is Chief Human Resources Officer at ICON. ICON describes his work through people practices, organisational leadership and culture, supported by a long career in human resources.

In a global business, leadership development has to travel well without becoming generic. The practical work is to keep the organisation’s expectations clear while allowing leaders in different places to respond to the people and customers in front of them.

13. Kristin Lane.

Chief Human Resources Officer, CRH.

Kristin Lane is Chief Human Resources Officer at CRH. CRH’s public reporting connects its people agenda with a pipeline of future leaders and a frontline leadership programme.

That combination is worth noticing. Leadership development cannot focus only on the most visible senior roles. Frontline managers shape the daily experience of work, so a credible pipeline gives them practical support, clear expectations and a path to grow their influence.

14. Lisa Sewell.

Chief People Officer, Flutter Entertainment.

Lisa Sewell is Chief People Officer at Flutter Entertainment. Flutter’s current people writing names three connected programmes: Emerging Leaders, The Edge and Talent Magnets.

The value is in the connection between the programmes. Flutter presents leadership development as a system that helps people grow through real roles, senior support and broader enterprise experience. That is more useful than treating leadership as a set of personal traits detached from the work.

15. Matt Elliott.

Chief People Officer, Bank of Ireland.

Matt Elliott is Chief People Officer at Bank of Ireland. The bank’s current public material connects his role with career development, inclusion and a people experience that supports colleagues across the group.

The bank’s 2025 annual report also identifies a group learning policy designed to support the skills, knowledge and competence needed for strategic objectives. That is the kind of link development leaders should keep making: learning is strongest when people can see how it helps them do important work well.

16. Michelle Healy.

Chief Human Resources Officer, Kerry.

Michelle Healy is Chief Human Resources Officer at Kerry. Kerry describes her remit through leadership capability, talent pipeline and organisation effectiveness.

That combination points to a practical leadership question: what needs to become easier for the next layer of leaders? A pipeline is not only a list of names. It is a way to test whether people are getting the experience, feedback and support needed to carry bigger responsibility.

17. Nicola McCracken.

Chief People Officer, DCC.

Nicola McCracken is Chief People Officer at DCC. DCC’s people material connects her work with talent development, succession planning and workforce engagement.

That connection keeps development grounded in listening. Engagement information can show where people feel stuck, where trust needs attention and where leaders need to act. It gives development work a better starting point than assuming that every team needs the same intervention.

18. Samantha Knight.

Group HR Director, MJ Gleeson.

Samantha Knight is Group HR Director at MJ Gleeson. The company’s appointment announcement describes her 20 years of HR experience and her focus on strengthening the employee value proposition and apprenticeship offer.

That is a reminder that early-career pathways are part of leadership development too. Apprenticeships can widen the route into capability, while a clear employee proposition helps people understand why they should build their future in the organisation.

What these leaders show.

First, development is most credible when it is close to real work. The examples above connect leadership capability with succession, organisation design, frontline management, culture, career pathways or business change.

Second, the role is wider than training. These leaders influence the conditions around learning: what gets noticed, which opportunities are available, how managers are supported and whether people can imagine a future inside the organisation.

Third, the strongest public examples make the next step visible. A leadership programme, a talent pipeline, a career path or a learning policy becomes useful when a person can see what to do with it on Monday morning.

How to use this list.

Use the list as a prompt for better questions, not as a ranking. If you are reviewing your own leadership development work, ask where your pipeline is strong, where new managers need help and which parts of the employee experience make growth easier or harder.

You can also compare your current approach with the practical themes in leadership team development and the Working Genius implementation guide. The point is not to collect another framework. It is to make one useful change visible in the way your leaders work together.

Frequently asked questions.

What does a leadership development leader do?

A leadership development leader helps an organisation build the capability it needs for the future. That may include talent pipelines, succession planning, manager support, learning programmes, organisation design, culture work and career development.

Are these people ranked?

No. This is a researched starting point, not a league table. The people were selected for a clear public connection to people, talent, culture, learning or leadership capability at public companies with a strong Irish connection.

Why are there 18 people instead of 50?

The original topic asked for 50 names. Eighteen people passed the full current-evidence standard. Keeping the final list to 18 protects accuracy and makes the list more useful than filling the gap with stale, unnamed or weakly supported clues.

What should I look for in a leadership development programme?

Look for a clear connection to real work. Good questions include: what behaviour should change, which leaders need to practise it, how managers will reinforce it and what opportunity people will have to use the new capability.

Conclusion.

The people in this list show that leadership development is a system, not a single event. It lives in talent decisions, career pathways, manager habits, succession planning, culture and the daily choices that tell people what leadership looks like here.

If you are building that system, start small. Name the leadership behaviour that matters most, choose one real situation where it needs to appear and give people a clear next move.

Related reading.

For more practical ideas, read 21 Practical Steps After Working Genius With Your Team. It focuses on turning a development conversation into changes people can actually use.

A practical next step.

If your leadership team needs a clearer development plan, write down the one leadership challenge that is costing the organisation the most energy. Then ask what leaders need to do differently in the next 30 days, not what course they should attend.

If you would like help turning that challenge into a practical leadership development session, email jonno@consultclarity.org with the context and the outcome you want.

About the author.

Jonno White is a Brisbane-based leadership consultant, keynote speaker and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and the author of Step Up or Step Out. He works with schools, corporates and nonprofits around the world. To enquire about a keynote, workshop or facilitated leadership session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.