Northern Ireland’s Premium Leadership Event

Jim is one of the most successful sports coaches that this island has produced having guided Dublin to an unprecedented 5 All-Ireland Gaelic Football titles in a row. Cementing his reputation as a transformative leader, Jim recently chaired the GAA Football Review Committee which has just introduced the most significant rule changes in the association’s history designed to make Gaelic football the most exiting amateur sport in the world to both watch and play. A pilot by profession, Jim is currently the COO of the Irish Aviation Authority having previously served as Chief of Military Aviation for the United Nations multi-national peace keeping mission in the Central African Republic. He was awarded Doctor of Philosophy by Dublin City University for his approach to leadership and management.

Originally from Tyrone, Oonagh is the owner and MD of the Meagher’s Pharmacy Group, a group of ten physical pharmacies in Dublin with an online store serving customers in 70 countries all across the world. Oonagh was named as Businesswoman of the Year 2023 by Irish Tatler, as well as Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2023 Women Mean Business Awards. Meaghers has been recognised as one of Ireland’s ‘Great Place to Work’ for the past three years, a Deloitte Best Managed Company for ten consecutive years and Employer of the Year at the Retail Excellence Awards. A qualified pharmacist, Oonagh is also CEO of Symprove Ireland and one of the country’s most influential thinkers on health & wellbeing.

Everything Mark Pollock does is about inspiring leaders and their teams to build resilience, optimise performance and collaborate with others so that they achieve more than they thought possible. His sporting career was on the up, when he was suddenly struck by total blindness at the age of 22.  Unbroken by this, he went on to compete in ultra-endurance challenges, including a race to the South Pole and 6 marathons in 7 days in the Gobi Desert. He also won silver and bronze medals rowing in the Commonwealth Games. In 2010, a fall from a second story window nearly killed him. Mark broke his back and the damage to his spinal cord left him paralysed. Now he is on a new expedition, this time exploring the intersection where humans and technology collide to cure paralysis in our lifetime. A decade after he last spoke for MLN, Mark will update us on that journey and offer his unique perspective on adversity, mindset, performance, collaboration and AI’s role in human enhancement. One of Ireland’s most inspirational communicators, Mark has inspired the leaders of the planet’s best known brands and been invited to speak at TED, Davos, the World Economic Forum and Wired.

Leo Varadkar was Taoiseach of Ireland from 2017-2020 and again from 2022-24. During these periods he led Ireland through Brexit and helped guide the country through the Pandemic with public health and economic responses that were internationally recognized for their efficacy. As Taoiseach, Leo established a Child Poverty and Well-being Programme, doubled spending on the arts, culture, and sport, significantly enhanced workers’ rights and oversaw the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to a 30-year low on foot of a new climate law. At the time of his leaving office, Ireland had record levels of employment and a budget surplus that allowed for increased investment in public infrastructure, such as new public housing, schools, and healthcare facilities. A ground-breaking leader, Leo was Ireland’s youngest and first biracial Taoiseach as well as Ireland’s first, and the world’s fifth, openly gay head of government. He has recently been appointed as a Hauser Leader at Harvard University’s Kennedy School for Public Leadership which has a mission to develop principled, effective public leaders who make positive change in the world.

Originally from North Belfast, Judith joined the RUC in 1982, served during the worst of the Troubles and rose to become the first ever female Chief Officer in the history of NI policing. A graduate of Cambridge University and the FBI’s National Executive Institute, Judith has been awarded OBE, CBE and an Honorary Doctorate from Queens University. Now an independent leadership advisor, Judith chaired the Interdepartmental Working Group on Mother and Baby Homes, Magdalene Laundries and Historical Clerical Child Abuse and now co-chairs the independent assessment panel for Diversity Mark.  She has led from the front in some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable and driven change that has required great resilience and sensitivity on her part.