Women's Innovation Network at Dublin City University (WIN@DCU)

Kathleen O'Toole, Chief Inspector of the Garda Siochána

WIN@DCU is a bi-annual speaker series, which presents powerful female role models for undergraduate students from the world of business, science, communications and the humanities. On Thursday 16 October, DCU’s Deputy President, Professor Anne Scott welcomed female business leaders and students to join her in the1838 Club, Albert College and hear from invited successful women who are recognised for their leadership and professional accomplishments.

The evening commenced with two keynote speeches from Kathleen O’Toole, the Chief Inspector of the Garda Siochána Inspectorate who addressed Leadership around the theme of “It Is Not Just for Leaders” and also from Tina Roche, Chief Executive of Business in the Community Ireland who discussed the importance of Social Entrepreneurship and Investing in Social Development. Guests then broke off into two interactive discussion groups and guests were able to choose from attending a session on The Glass Ceiling – does it still exist?, led by Entrepreneur, Eleanor McEvoy or The Power of Networking, led by Dr. Anna Kupka, co-founder of ammado.com. The WIN@DCU speaker series has proven to be a tremendous success in illustrating to students, graduates and friends the challenges faced by successful women in Ireland across all sectors.

The evening gave the guests a wonderful networking opportunity and particularly allowed the undergraduate students to meet and discuss issues with some of Ireland’s leading professional women. The evening ended with a wine reception allowing all guests further opportunities to engage, swap contact details and hopefully develop further connections.

The cross-faculty WIN@DCU is sponsored by the DCU Educational Trust and for more information on how you may become involved, please contact Orla Holmes, Director of Operations, DCU Educational Trust on (01) 700 8162 or email orla.holmes@dcu.ie