Orlaith Ryan is a senior executive and strategic brand leader currently serving as Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at AIB, a role she stepped into in October 2024 as part of the bank’s refreshed executive leadership team focused on customer experience and organisational growth. In this position, she reports directly to the CEO and plays a central role in shaping AIB’s strategic direction across customer engagement, brand positioning and sponsorship activation within sport and wider community life.

Before joining AIB, Orlaith enjoyed a distinguished career in media and commercial leadership — most notably spending eight years with Sky Ireland, where she held senior executive roles including Chief Commercial Officer, Customer Director and Head of Customer Value Management. At Sky, she was a driving force behind strategic partnerships and sponsorship activations, including landmark support for the Republic of Ireland Women’s National Football Team and broader football engagement that helped raise the profile of women’s sport nationally.

Her professional journey also includes senior roles in customer and commercial strategy with other major Irish and multinational brands, including Vodafone and Aviva, giving her deep cross-sector insight into customer behaviour, brand growth and commercial partnerships.

At AIB, Orlaith’s remit extends beyond traditional banking sponsorship, connecting sport with community, culture and national identity. She continues to shape high-profile campaigns — including AIB’s support for Gaelic games and other major sporting properties — balancing commercial impact with social value and visibility for female athletes and grassroots programmes.

She is the 17th New Name on this year’s list and the 42nd to be named so far.

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Previously Listed

Dr Una May, Moira Aston, Mary O’Connor, Michelle Carpenter, Brenda O’Donnell, Sarah Keane, Karen Coventry, Michelle Tanner, Mary McAleese, Rosie Barry, Sinead Hosey, Laura Heffernan, Jacqui Hurley, Aoife Lane, Tracy Bunyan, Lisa Clancy, Aoife Clarke, Thelma O’Driscoll, Catherine Tiernan, Helen O’Rourke, Niamh Tallon, Julie Nicholson, Aisling O’Reilly, Evanne Ní Chuilinn, Avalon Everett, Ashley Morrow, Eimear O’Sullivan, Kelli O’Keeffe, Sarah O’Connor, Jill Downey, Ger McTavish, Aifric Keogh, Rebecca Trevor, Lyn Savage, Suzanne Eade, Joanna Byrne, Bethany Carson, Lynne Cantwell, Christina Kenny, Sinead Cassidy, Nicola Coffey

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This is the 13th edition of the Sport for Business listing of 50 Women of Influence in Irish Sport in partnership once more with our friends at AIG.

We began this journey in 2013, when we were challenged to produce a list of 20 Influential Women in Irish Sport. The 20 stretched to 30, then 40 and 50, and it still does not do justice to the talent out there.

Substantial progress has been made during this time. The Government, mindful of the importance and need for gender equity, challenged Irish sporting bodies to achieve a 60/40 gender split on their main boards or leadership entities by the end of 2023

Internationally, the gender split in doctors ranges from 46 per cent female in New Zealand to 48 per cent in the UK, 52 per cent in France, and 54 per cent in the United States. Sport has, for too long, lagged.

The gender gap in participation is targeted to be non-existent by 2027, and the profile of our elite athletes is as high for Katie Taylor, Katie McCabe, Rhasidat Adeleke and Leona Maguire as it is for the best of our men.

We are nearing the point where sport is sport regardless of gender.

The gap remains too big in media, sponsorship, attendance, and funding, but it is only by highlighting the wrongs that we can make them right.

This year’s list will again draw from all the multiple areas that make up sport. From the fields of play to the corridors of power, from the boardroom to the studio, and from every corner of the country.

We will divide the list into the CEO Club, the Influencers, and the Sponsors Lounge. the Administrators and others

This year, once again, we will challenge ourselves to generate at least 40 per cent of new entrants to ensure that fresh recognition is given to those making a mark.

This will mean some who fully deserve to remain stepping aside but that is part of what influence and leadership is about and they are in no way diminished by their not being on the list this year.

The list we will build over the coming weeks is a snapshot of women who are changing the way sport is played, consumed, grown, and delivered.

They are part of making the role of women in sport unexceptional by being exceptional in what they do.

Recognition of their contribution is rarely asked for but is entirely deserved, and we want your help in identifying those who you feel should be among them.

So, who else do you think should be on the list for 2025?

 

Image Credit: Sport for Business

Further Reading for Sport for Business members:

Read our Sport for Business Coverage of Women in Sport

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