Chairperson
Aldagh McDonogh, Strategic Leader, Cyberpsychologist, Dip ESG and formerly CEO of Morgan McKinley, a global professional recruitment solutions company. Previously co-founder of a leading marketing services company in Ireland and a finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Competition. Aldagh holds a number of Board Directorships and is a member of the Institute of Directors..
Furkan Karayel is multi award winning diversity and inclusion speaker and author of the best selling book “Inclusive Intelligence: How to be a Role Model for Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace”. Furkan lectures at the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Master’s program at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. Her passion is leveraging women-in-tech leadership, diversity and empowering female founders globally.
Furkan founded Diversein.com after 10 years of software engineering experience in multinational tech companies in Ireland. She has been honoured with “Speaker of the Year”, “Diversity and Inclusion Role Model in Business” , “Trailblazer” and “Inclusive Leadership Development” Awards. Additionally, Furkan is an active speaker at international events where she shares her learnings about experiences of the tech world as a woman, her recommendations for inclusive leadership and the power of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Maria Joyce is the Coordinator of the National Traveller Women’s Forum where she is leading the organisations mission to empower Traveller Women to achieve full equality and have their identity celebrated.
Using a human rights and community development based approach, she strives to empower Traveller Women in working towards full (gender) equality, supporting them to take leadership roles within their own and the wider community. Maria joined the Board of Women for Election in 2020.
Treasurer
Teresa is a Certified Accountant and Chartered Director, and a former tax partner in PwC Ireland, where she led the firm’s not-for-profit practice as well as advising family businesses and law firms. She is a non-executive director of Concern Worldwide, Concern Korea Foundation and Business to Arts.
Susan Shannon is currently Shell’s Vice President for Policy & Advocacy. In this role, Susan is responsible for Shell’s global policy and advocacy development, delivery and capability covering more than 70 countries, international organisations and external organisations. With a team of over 80 people globally, Susan is accountable for the external positioning of the company on key issues around Energy Transition and represents the company externally on a range of international policy and advocacy issues.
Prior to this Susan worked in Brussels, where she set up the Brussels branch of Women for Election. She has a BA in History & Politics from Trinity College Dublin and an MSc in Russian & Post Soviet Studies from the London School of Economics.
Niamh Sweeney is a Director at Milltown Partners, a global reputation and policy advisory firm. She joined Milltown in 2023 after 7+ years working in the tech sector in Dublin for Stripe, WhatsApp and Facebook. Prior to that, she worked as a Special Adviser to former Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, and as a journalist with RTÉ, the Irish Times, Bloomberg and Fortune magazine. Niamh was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University in New York in 2014.
Co-founder of and Strategic Advisor to Women for Election
Niamh is Head of Public Policy for Ireland and EMEA lead for infrastructure Public Policy at Amazon Web Services (AWS); the cloud computing division of Amazon.com. She co-founded Women for Election (WFE) with Michelle O’Donnell Keating in 2011, and the pair went on to win the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland ‘IMPACT’ award, which enabled them to focus full-time on establishing WFE to deliver its mission to inspire and equip women to succeed in politics. Before AWS Niamh worked in a number of roles in politics and policy, including as CEO of Drinkaware, Director at Women for Election and Research and Policy Analyst at the Children’s Rights Alliance in Dublin. Niamh started her working life as a researcher at Fianna Fail, before moving to London as researcher for Demos, a leading UK think tank, where she co-authored a series of influential reports.
Niamh is was a Board member and is now a strategic advisor at Women for Election and a Governor at the Rotunda Hospital. She holds a BA in European Studies from Trinity College Dublin, a Masters Degree in Politics from the London School of Economics and an Executive MBA from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business.
Company Secretary
Nora is a Chartered Tax Adviser. She has worked for many years in professional services firms and currently works in industry. She had advised a wide range of clients over the years including clients in the not-for-profit sector
Company Secretary
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