Who We Are?

Chris is the CEO of the Irish Social Enterprise Network (Socent.ie), Managing Partner of Collaboration Ireland and Country Partner for BCorp Ireland. Chris is an Adjunct Teaching Fellow of Trinity Business School. Chris also volunteers as Chair of Far and Wild social enterprise and is Vice President of the Irish US Alumni Association. Chris is the former Director of Social Enterprise NI.

Chris’ work focuses on leading and managing European and nationwide projects on Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Responsibility, Social Impact, Startups, Cooperatives, Exporting, SMEs in Ireland and leading a life of passion and purpose.

Chris is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management in the UK, Social Innovation Fellow from StartingBloc in the US, a Constellations Society Fellow from France, Tällberg Pathfinder Fellow from Sweden and a US Department of State awardee on Social Enterprise and Tackling Long Term Unemployment programme. Chris is also a Member of the Institute of Directors Ireland. Chris’ passion is in outdoor facilitation, youth work, social inclusion and community development.

Chris has a degree in Theoretical Physics from Queen’s University Belfast, a Masters in Business from the University of Ulster and has qualifications from the Institute of Banking, LIA and UCD.

Duncan is the Net-Works EU Project manager for the Irish Social Enterprise Network. Duncan is an experienced Project Manager with 25 years’ experience in the Healthcare, Disability and Social Housing sectors. Prior to moving to Ireland in 2003 Duncan worked in the public and private healthcare sectors managing a range of services and projects. He also worked for various Local Authorities in the Greater London region, managing large scale housing projects. For the past 15 years Duncan has worked in the Social/Voluntary housing sector in Ireland, working at all levels from managing individual housing development projects to strategic level on a number of Boards of Management. In 2013, Duncan commenced working for WALK, a disability service provider based in Walkinstown in South Dublin. As well as working on housing projects supporting people with intellectual disabilities to move from group housing to independent, community-based accommodation, Duncan also managed a start-up social enterprise in Walkinstown , Dublin – the Green Kitchen cafés & garden centre. This social enterprise provides training in the hospitality and horticulture sectors and supports people with intellectual disabilities to progress to further training and employment. Duncan is currently working as a freelance consultant in the social economy sector. LinkedIn– Duncan WalkerTwitter – @duncanwalker70

Danielle Byrne is a visiting Research Fellow in the Trinity Centre for Social Innovation, in the Business School of Trinity College Dublin.  Her academic research interests include social enterprises (especially taxonomy and mapping methodologies), the broader social economy and hybrid organisations. She has provided teaching support in Trinity for undergraduate modules on Business in Society and Social Entrepreneurship  and for MBA modules.  Previously she was programme manager at Pobal with responsibility for the Community Services Programme, Rural Social Scheme and Tús, executive director of environmental regeneration charity Groundwork Hackney, regional director of Groundwork UK and CEO of Islington Chamber of Commerce. She has a long history of community activism of which perhaps her best days were on the board of social enterprise Walworth Garden. As a young woman she worked as a copywriter and has taken that skill with her – in recent years she was the Dublin correspondent for Plays International magazine and in 2017 edited The Runner McGeough – the Untold Story.  

Emma McEvoy gained her Ph.D. at Maynooth University, Department of Law. Emma’s research interests revolve around public procurement legislation and the inclusion of social clauses in public contracts. Emma graduated with a BA in Economics, Politics and Law from DCU in 2007 and an MA in Development in 2009. Emma was employed as a legal research assistant from 2011 to 2013 on the Interreg EU funded “Winning in Tendering” project. Winning in Tendering is strategic research project aimed at transforming the public sector tendering experience of small indigenous suppliers. Emma was responsible for assessing the impact of the EU Public Procurement Remedies Directive on small suppliers selling into the Irish public market. Over the last three years, Emma facilitated a variety of training programmes for public procurers and SMEs. Emma is a co-author of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce’s “Are tenders on your Radar” report and co-author on a social-enterprise orientated “How to Engage in the Public Sector Market” guidance document. Emma strives to re-examine the key ideas and assumptions that shape the production of knowledge in this arena.

Leyla is the organiser of the Techstars Startup Weekend Women in Dublin and the Founder of YourYNerwork, a global community of social entrepreneurs and changemakers. She is currently working on a new social enterprise KPesa, which aims to empower women running micro and small businesses to scale their businesses by training them on financial literacy and providing access to capital and markets.

Leyla is a DCU graduate in Accounting and Finance, with experience working for different non profit organisations in Dublin, Ireland.  She also studied MA in International Relations and as a natural born activist, one of Leyla’s pastimes is to promote International Trade Justice.

Eamon is an award-winning serial social entrepreneur. He recently co-founded Range Therapy, responding to the climate change crisis by focusing on reducing transport emissions, one of the big four human causes. Range Therapy designs, builds and installs range extenders for EVs and EV charge points,  often using reused battery packs.Eamon Stack was founder and former CEO at ENCLUDE for 14 years. This charity is focused on building the management information capacity of the Irish Charity Sector, with special focus on addiction, homelessness and DV services. Having researched the nonprofit ICT challenges at the Centre for Nonprofit Management at TCD,  Eamon won a major Social Entrepreneurs Ireland award in 2008.Eamon Stack is a software engineer with 35 years development experience in the nonprofit sector. He is married to Anne Henry and currently lives in Dublin.

Thomas McCabe

Lucie Cunningham