New roles: (top row) Ashley McDonnell, Brian Curtis, Alicia Reyes Revuelta; (bottom row) Micheál Kerley, Dr Lorraine Nolan, Janita Lanigan.
Here is a selection of people starting new roles with Digital Business Ireland, Willis Towers Watson, KBC, LGIM, European Medicines Agency and Lockton.
Ashley McDonnell, luxury business adviser with fashion and fragrance business PUIG in Barcelona, has been appointed as chair Digital Business Ireland, representative body for 8,000 businesses. She takes over from Niall Horgan of Gym+Coffee, who has completed his term as chair. Ashley brings experience across e-commerce, digital media and luxury retail, and will remain as chair up to 2024. Prior to joining PUIG, she was a global luxury account manager for Google; she was digital manager with Parfums Christian Dior; she was a digital analyst with Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH). She has also advised Rag Revolution, the Irish fashion and tech start-up.
Brian Curtis has been appointed as head of Ireland + Nordics with Willis Towers Watson (WTW), the advisory, broking, and solutions firm in Dublin. As well as leading this new regional grouping, he also remains the country head and head of corporate risk and broking for Ireland – roles he has held for 12 years. He brings 30 years of insurance experience, having held senior roles at Alexander & Alexander and Aon in Ireland. He joined Willis Ireland as CEO in 2009 and was appointed country head and head of corporate risk and broking following the merger of Willis and Towers Watson in 2016.
Alicia Reyes Revuelta has been named on the board of KBC Group. She replaces Júlia Király, who has resigned for personal reasons. She has over 26 years of experience in investment banking and private equity. She is a board member of Ferrovial (IBEX-9) and Banco Sabadell (IBEX-25). She was until recently the CEO of Wells Fargo Securities for EMEA. She was also a partner at private equity firm Olympo Capital. She has also held senior roles with Barclays Capital. She was country manager for Spain and Portugal with Bear Stearns, having also worked with venture capital fund Telvent and Deutsche Bank.
Micheál Kerley has been appointed as senior client relationship manager, Ireland, for Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM). He brings ten years of experience in client-facing roles for domestic and global firms, notably an ESG investment specialist in Mercer Global Investors Europe, where he helped develop Mercer’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) offering over the past three years. He previously worked with Goodbody Stockbrokers as a client relationship manager, managing a portfolio of private clients. Prior to this, he started his career as a commercial relationship manager with AIB, responsible for a portfolio of business and personal banking clients.
Dr Lorraine Nolan has been elected chairwoman of the board of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for a three-year period. She is CEO of the Irish Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) since 2016, having joined in 2001. She and has been vice-chair of EMA’s management board since 2019 and a board member since 2016. She brings more than 20 years of experience in the regulation of medicines and health products. Ireland now holds the two main roles on the EMA board, with Dr Emer Cooke as its Director General. She takes over from Christa Wirthumer-Hoche, head of the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency.
Janita Lanigan has been appointed as senior consultant with brokers Lockton. She brings extensive knowledge of employee benefits design and support. She has over a decade’s experience of working with clients across benefits administration and consulting. She was previously CRM and manager of the corporate pension brokerage team with Willis Towers Watson, among other roles over 14 years with the firm. She supports clients in designing and communicating a range of employee benefits from pensions to healthcare, as part of their overall employee value proposition. She holds a diploma in HR, AIIPM, QFA, MBS in Business Studies, and a BA in European Business and German.
