DCU Voices Podcast
The DCU Voices Podcast Series is hosted by Fergal O’Keeffe, who interviews some fascinating DCU Alumni, to learn about their careers, mentors, milestones, and memories of their time in DCU, how it shaped their lives and careers.
Episode 1 speaks to Anthony Bolton, who has over 30 years of Fortune 15 experience in international roles, developing and leading large, culturally diverse and global IT teams with some of the world's largest enterprises, including Dell Hewlett Packard and General Motors.
Anthony is currently the CIO and CTO of global telecommunications and end user services infrastructure and development with General Motors. Based in Dublin, Anthony leads a global team of over 700 industry leading engineers and developers in the design, engineering and delivery of GM’s global network.
Episode 2 speaks to Sinead McCluskey, who graduated from DCU with a BSc in Analytical Science and a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry. Sinead started her career as a nutritional biochemist with Wyeth Nutrition white in a technical support role. Before then moving into the commercial side of the business with Johnson and Johnson Medical in Australia.
Sinead has worked in senior sales and marketing roles internationally across multinational, SME and the Start Up sectors.
Sinead started her own medtech distribution business called Slainte Solutions in 2010, which was then acquired by PEI Surgical in 2015. Sinead established Balmain Medical in 2021 to bring the best in class medical innovations from across the world to Irish patients. They specialize in plastic reconstructive and varicose vein surgery.
Episode 3 speaks to Brendan Thomas, who is a 1987 graduate of DCU's Accounting and Finance program. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte and Touche in Dublin and emigrated to San Francisco in 1995 when the internet was in its infancy. Since then he has been the CFO for a significant number of Hi-Tech, venture-backed startups in Silicon Valley including Twitter, Appdynamics, and Square. He retired from the world of finance in 2012 to spend time with his wife and children and to write.
Episode 4 speaks to Donal Scannell. Donal is a true communications renaissance man who started working with the Late Late Show straight out of DCU. Donal also started a music magazine and worked with people like with David Gray, U2, Westlife and the KLF.
Donal worked on the first reality TV show in the UK and this gave him a love of live TV which has influenced his career ever since. He has set up a number of tech companies including his current company Arama, which is revolutionising live television by reimagining a process that hasn’t changed for decades.
Listen to Episode 4 on Spotify now.
Episode 5 speaks to Ann Power-Forde. Ann is an academic, a Senior Counsel, a former International Judge and, currently, a Judge on the Court of Appeal in Ireland. From 2017 until 2019, Ann served as the Presiding Judge of the Constitutional Court Chamber within the Kosovo Specialist Chambers—a war crimes Tribunal based in the Hague. Before that, she had served for over seven years as a Judge on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
As a member of the Strasbourg Court—the world’s largest international court—Ann sat in cases that dealt with some of the most pressing concerns of our time, including, the legacy of the invasion of Iraq, the annexation of Crimea, the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, the treatment of immigrants and other vulnerable minorities and the consequences of global terrorism.
Ann studied English and Philosophy at the Mater Dei Institute of Education. She obtained her Master’s Degree in the Philosophy of Education from Trinity College, Dublin, and went on to study Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford.
Before starting her career at the Bar, Ann taught English at secondary school level and lectured (full-time) in Philosophy.
Episode 6 speaks to Wexford native, Eleanor Hayes Merritt. Eleanor graduated from DCU in 1990 with a BSc in Computer Applications. Eleanor gives a fascinating and inspiring insight into her career and life in California.
Eleanor emigrated to the USA in 1995 to work for Oracle, a multinational computer technology corporation based in California which employs over 140,000 people worldwide. Eleanor has since risen through the ranks to become its Senior Vice President overseeing 1,800 engineers and analysts.
With her broad technology background, Eleanor oversees globally-distributed engineering teams, delivering critical products that generate billions of dollars in revenue.
Eleanor’s achievements at Oracle have led to her being included in the official list of the '50 Most Powerful Women in Technology' in California.