John is an Olympian, qualified solicitor, and is the current Chairperson of the Irish Sailing Olympic Steering Group.
His initial involvement with High-Performance sport was in Athletics, where he represented Ireland in the Discus at the 2000 Olympic Games, World University Games and Europa Cups.
Prior to retiring from Arthur Cox Solicitors in 2020, John spent 25 years working in various legal and management roles including heading up their New York Office (1996/1999), running the Technology Practice Group (2000-2013) and heading up the Corporate Department (2013- 2019). John also has experience as a director having served on the Boards of lrish subsidiaries of US multinationals such as Cisco, GAP and PayPal.
Having retired as a solicitor, John now works as an investor with a variety of venture/Angel groups with a focus on growth companies. He also serves as a Director of Fleetmatics Limited and the Irish Sailing Foundation.
John still participates and competes in a variety of sports including Master Athletics, Golf and Target Shooting. He has also volunteered across a diverse number of sports including Sailing (Chairperson of OSG), Athletics (coach with DSD), Rugby (member of Leinster Rugby Appeal Committee) and Shooting (Chairperson of Tokyo Olympic Selection Appeal 2021).
| Skill set | Detail |
| Financial | Experience as a Company Director of over 20 Irish Companies as well as a member of the Arthur Cox Management Committee includes: setting income/expenditure budgets; monitoring cashflow, debtor days, work in progress and solvency; reviewing monthly management accounts and annual statutory accounts; raising finance (including venture and debt finance); selecting auditors and engaging with them as part of annual audit. |
| Legal | BCL Law Degree from UCD in 1991. Qualified as a Solicitor 1995. Qualified Trademark Agent. Worked 25 years as a Corporate and Technology lawyer for Arthur Cox Solicitors in Ireland and USA on a broad range of corporate matters for US companies with operations in Ireland as well as on corporate and intellectual property work for Irish technology companies. |
| Risk / Compliance | As a director – dealing with company compliance issues including company compliance statements, health and safety obligations, pensions, data protection and annual audit and company office filings. |
| Sports Administration | High Performance: Chairperson of High-Performance Committee in Irish Sailing (OSG), working with Performance Director, CEO and President of Irish Sailing on wide variety of HP matters as well as engaging with key stakeholders including OFI, Institute of Sport and Sport Ireland.
Dispute Resolution: Member of the Leinster Rugby Appeals committee – this committee deals with appeals from decisions of other Leinster rugby committees. Independent Chairperson of the Nomination Appeals Panel for ICTSA Olympic nomination for Tokyo Olympics. |
| Governance | Familiar with the obligations and duties of directors under the Companies Acts and other legislation. Experience of setting up and maintaining register of directors’ interests and managing and dealing with actual or perceived conflicts of interests at Board level as well as setting up appropriate standing orders and terms of reference as well as reporting back obligations for the Board to delegate to sub committees of the Board. |
| Information Technology | I am director of Fleetmatics which is a telematics SaaS company, and we deal with a wide variety of IT issues relating to the building of a platform and the selling of services to clients using our software and third party hardware. As a lawyer I dealt wide variety of IT acquisition, outsourcing and dispute issues. |
| High Performance Sport | Competed in Discus in the Sydney Olympics 2000, World University Games 1993 and Europa Cup (x 3). Won 26 Irish Senior Athletic titles (Discus/56lb Distance) over 23-year senior career, 16 Irish University titles (Discus/Hammer/Shot and 35lb Weight), New York State Champion in Discus (1997) and Silver medal in Discus at World Masters Championships in 2007 (M35). Current Irish record holder in the 56lb weight for distance. |
| Commercial / Marketing | I spent over 3 years in the Arthur Cox New York office full time marketing Irish legal services to US companies establishing in Ireland (1996-1999) and continued with part time marketing activities (mainly in the US) to attract new clients to Arthur Cox until I retired from the firm in 2020. |
| Human Resources | Experience includes running hiring/exit interviews, negotiating terms of employment contract, dealing with salary reviews and bonus scheme metrics, termination of employees, grievance procedures and being the party to determine grievances; benchmarking salary scales for potential hires, working with recruitment agents; |