Catherine McDonnell Chairperson Expand Catherine graduated in Medicine from University College Dublin. She qualified as both a general practitioner and a psychiatrist. During her training she worked in Northern Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand. She settled locally and was appointed as a Consultant Psychiatrist in the Western Health and Social Care Trust working in both hospitals and community. She trained in Quality Improvement with the Scottish Quality Safety Fellowship programme and the Sheffield Flow Coaching Academy. She held regional roles and led award winning service improvement teams. She spent the latter part of her career in medical management and was Trust Medical Director through the Covid pandemic. She is delighted to be working with Verbal.
Ciara Hanley Board Member Expand Ciara is a graduate of NUI Galway and the Law Society of Ireland. She practiced as a Solicitor in Dublin for ten years, predominantly in the area of defence insurance litigation, before becoming dual qualified and practicing in general litigation in ROI and NI. She has a keen interest in public policy and completed a research project on criminal trials of sexual offences with the Policy Unit of the Director of Public Prosections (ROI) and assisted the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre establish it's first legal advocacy service. More recently she benefited from completing the Boardroom Apprentice programme.
Jason McIntosh Board Member Expand Jason is a Chartered Accountant and is Senior Finance Manager at Seagate Technology where he is responsible for the Accounting group in the UK and Ireland and across a number of EMEA locations. He previously worked in accountancy practice as an audit manager. Jason studied an LLB in Law, and a Masters in Corporate Governance at Queen's University Belfast. He is also on the board of Groundwork NI, where he currently chairs the Finance & Personnel Committee.
June Coates Board Member Expand June - now retired - worked at Seagate Technology for 24 years where she was Internal Communications and Community Engagement Manager. In this role, she was responsible for local employee communications, PR, sponsorships and community partnerships. The latter included the development and delivery of a number of STEM programmes for local schools and the promotion and facilitation of employee volunteering opportunities.
Paul Healy Vice Chair Expand Paul Healy works as a programme manager in the technology sector. He is the co-founder of Fantom, (https://www.fantom.me ) a technology provider to supermarket sales promoters. He also works as a decision support consultant in the consulting collective Get Real (https://www.getreal.ie ), and is an Accredited Member of the Association of Facilitators. Based in Derry/Londonderry he works with international clients in Media, Internet, and Technology businesses.
Steven Lindsay Treasurer Expand Steven is a chartered accountant and a chartered internal auditor. He has been Chief Executive and Director of Finance in Health and Social Care, and a partner in an accountancy practice. He sits on the boards of organisations in the public, charity, and not-for-profit sectors.
Valerie Dinsmore Board Member Expand Valerie was born and brought up in Derry and now lives in London. Her background is in policy, strategy and community engagement in local government and health services. She works as a freelance consultant, training commissioners in health and social care. She is also a qualified librarian.