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It is always one of the most popular series we run through the year and our listing of 30 Under 30 Young leaders of Tomorrow for 2021, in association with our friends at PwC, starts on Monday, March 7th.

Our ambition is the creation of a network of people making a real difference within our industry.

Over the past five years, we have highlighted almost 150 individuals as part of the 30 Under 30 initiative and here we have taken a look back on who they are and where they have gone so far in their careers.

We have broken the list up alphabetically and will list 20 individuals a day as we build up to the 2022 list.

Shairoze Akram – Harry Connolly

During the 2022 run, we will also be dropping a new podcast series of interviews with some of those that have gone before.

They are an impressive group of individuals.  Here is the second of the groups of 20…

 

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Sinéad Conroy  2019

Sinéad was the Business Services and Development Manager at the Federation of Irish Sport when nominated for the list in 2019.

After three years in the role, she departed sport for now in September 2021 to become Marketing Brand Manager with the Irish Times.

As part of her duties at the Federation, Conroy managed the relations, services and communications with the Federation’s member organisations. Her other responsibility lay in business development, including group purchasing and shared services, facilitating peer networks and supporting the development of the commercial programme.

Sinéad holds an honours degree in Commerce from University College Dublin and completed a Masters in Business Administration and Finance from the National College of Ireland in early 2021.

 

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Joseph Cronin  2018

Joseph joined the list in 2018 when he was a Commercial executive with Guinness PRO14 Rugby.  In early 2019 he moved on to a sales role in Salesforce.

Joseph earned his primary degree in Law from Griffith College before switching to do a Masters in Advertising at Dublin Institute of Technology and spending three years at Javelin Advertising.

 

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Sarah Crowe 2018

Sarah joined the list in 2018 as a key player in the project at the Confederation of Irish Golf which brought the Irish Ladies Golf Union and the Golfing Union of Ireland together as a single governing body for the sport, Golf Ireland.

After the completion of that project, she joined the wonderful sounding Jelly Belly Candy Company where she is now the European Customer Service Manager.

A graduate in Politics and Public Administration from the University of Limerick she spent time working at the European Parliament and in public affairs with Edelman in Brussels.

 

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Caroline Cummins 2021

Caroline Cummins is one of the key members of the sponsorship team at Aviva with responsibilities stretching across the brand’s partnerships with the FAI, IRFU and the Aviva Stadium.

She joined the brand in August 2020 having previously served in a Digital Marketing role with Glenisk and before that for two years with Enterprise Ireland.

A graduate of Dublin City University in Contemporary Culture and Society, she then went on to complete a Masters Degree in Marketing at Dublin Institute of Technology.

 

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Andrew Cunneen 2020

Andrew is a Data Editor working at Stats Perform in Limerick where he is responsible for content across a number of channels including those of Opta.
He also works as a freelance columnist with The42.ie, Paddy Power and other outlets.
A graduate in New media and English from the University of Limerick in 2015, Cunneen has been at Stats Perform since they opened their Limerick office in 2018, originally as a research analyst before stepping up to his current position this month.
He is also a contributor across various Irish media on US Sport.
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Sam Curtis 2021

Sam Curtis joined Canoeing Ireland in Nov 2019 on completion of his college studies.

He is a Canoe Slalom high-performance athlete, competing Internationally and vying for Olympic qualification.

It was a classic case of doing something at first on a part-time basis and then proving yourself to become a full-time member of a management team.

During his first year, he managed the design and layout of a number of key publications, transformed the Canoeing Ireland website and created engaging, fun and informative content across its social media platforms.

He earned a Science degree in Industrial product and Design from TU Dublin and returned in 2018 for a Masters in Strategic Management.

 

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Lorna Danaher  2020

Lorna is a Senior Sponsorship Executive with Energia.

She joined the company in July 2019 from C&C Group where she had been a member of the team responsible for managing Bulmers sponsorship of the Cheltenham Gold Cup as well as the partnership between Tipperary Water and the Irish Men’s Touch Rugby Team, among a host of other brand sponsorships within the Group.

Since moving to Energia she has been the driving force behind the Energia AIL partnership, helping to raise the profile of the domestic Rugby league through media activations and social campaigns, as well as launching the first Energia AIL app.

She has been heavily involved in the Power Behind Irish Rugby campaign which won Best Use of Insight at the 2021 European Sponsorship Awards.

Lorna has a degree in Business and Law from UCD as well as an International Marketing Masters from the Smurfit Business School. We understand that when she is not obsessing about rugby, she’s busy in the boxing gym and being a quiz nerd.

 

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Pierce Dargan 2020

Pierce Dargan is the Founder and CEO of Equine MediRecord, an online app serving the equine industry and which has won a host of awards.

The Kildare native has also been behind the establishment of Secret Street Tours, a not for profit initiative helping homeless people towards a path of independent living.

He attended Blackrock College in Dublin where he played rugby and was captain of the Judo team before going on to found the Blackrock Alumni Racing Syndicate that has horses in training with Joseph O’Brien and has had a winner at Leopardstown Racecourse.

Equine MediRecord won the Number One Draft Pick Awards at the 2017 One Zero Conference in Dublin and Best Use of Mobile at the Energia Digital media Awards in 2018.

A Graduate in International Politics and History from Trinity College in Dublin, he also earned a Masters in Management from the same college in 2017.

 

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Aisling Delaney 2018

Aisling joined the list in 2018 when she was the Events and Sponsorship Manager with PRO14 Rugby.  Later that year she moved over as Creative Experience and Events manager at Electric Ireland and in December 2020 December she moved over to Employee Engagement and Communications.

She graduated from University College Dublin with a BSc in Sports Management during which time a work placement opportunity with the FAI led to a full-time role.

As a Sponsorship and Marketing Executive, she worked on the UEFA Europa League Final at Aviva Stadium while also working with brands such as 3, Carlsberg, Ford, Aviva and Lucozade Sport on activating their sponsorship rights.

After returning from travelling to Australia, she joined Wilson Hartnell’s Sport’s Practice in September 2015, working across key accounts including Guinness, Electric Ireland, Carlsberg, An Post as well as with a number of rights holders such as Swim Ireland, Ireland Active and the Irish Sailing Association.

 

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Orla Devlin 2016

Orla joined the list in our first intake back in 2016 when she was General Manager of Simply Golf.  Her education background was a Masters in Finance and Capital Markets from DCU and she has subsequently moved out of the sporting arena to take up a position as a Corporate Finance Manager at Focus Capital Partners.

 

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Eamon Donoghue 2018

Eamon is a journalist and GAA columnist for the Irish Times.  He joined the list in 2018 as part of a new wave of media familiar with the world of data. He has penned a weekly GAA statistics column, changing the way the newspaper and other media outlets analyse the sport.  In 2019 he made his debut as an Analyst on eir sport.

As a traditional reporter, he has covered numerous major sporting stories from the Clare GAA fallout in 2015 to the origins of Iceland’s Viking thunderclap at Euro 2016

It is though for his curiosity in data journalism that he primarily earns his place in this list, looking behind the numbers with features on how many inter-county players face long commutes and how many clubs have taken up the month of April for club fixtures.

He graduated with a degree in journalism from DCU in 2014.

 

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Eoin Doyle 2019

Eoin was promoted again to Head of Marketing and Content at Sheffield United in the English Championship in June of 2021.  Prior to that he was Digital and Social Media Manager, a position he stepped up to after appearing on our list in 2019 having joined the club a year before.
Doyle completed his Degree in International Business at Waterford Institute of Technology in 2018 and joined Sheffield United straight away.  He had previously served as a marketing intern at Huddersfield United while studying.
He was nominated by his manager at the club at the time Emma Kirk who said that “Eoin has been pivotal in the enhancement of our club’s digital marketing outputs, increasing our engagement and followers across social media dramatically over the past 11 months.”
“As well as being recognised by his peers for his creativity and determination, we are also witnessing great feedback from supporters about the clubs much improved social media content largely produced by Eoin. Eoin’s ability to apply his knowledge of both sport and best practice marketing has taken the clubs content up to a whole new level.”
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Pippa Doyle  2018

Pippa is now the International Brand and Communications Manager at Whoop, a position she took up in August 2021.

When n=ominated for this list in 2018 she was a key member of the Sponsorship team at Littlewoods Ireland and was responsible for the brand’s engagement through its successful partnership with the All Ireland Hurling Championship and the Littlewoods Camogie National Leagues.  In 2020 She led the team to a European Sponsorship Award for best use of Social Media.

Having graduated with a Degree in Communications from Dublin City University, Doyle returned to education to secure a first-class Masters in Communications and Journalism from Griffith College in 2016.

That has served her well in delivering the #StyleofPlay content across social media and the storytelling and character-building activity on Littlewood’s owned channels over the past number of years, and now in the exciting world of wearable technology.

 

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Tommy Doyle 2021

 

Tommy Doyle is the Social Media Manager at the Gaelic Players Association and plays a key role in engagement with the association’s membership right across the country.

At the beginning of 2020, Tommy was tasked with overseeing the development and implementation of a new social media strategy for the GPA as part of a new overall communications strategy. Working with Connolly Partners he delivered a structured, cohesive and always-on approach that has been very popular and led to a dramatic increase in post performances and engagement with posts.

He also plays a key role in engaging with squads on a wide variety of matters. As a player for the Westmeath senior hurlers himself, he brings a unique perspective to this work.

He studied Business and Management at Technological University Dublin, graduating in 2018, and completed a Graphic Design Master Diploma at the International Academy of Computer Training in 2019.

He is currently participating in the Jim Madden GPA Leadership Programme, a bespoke Leadership programme for inter-county GAA Athletes.

 

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Emma Duffy 2021

Emma Duffy is a sports reporter at The 42 and one of the leading young lights coming through the online media environment.

She studied Journalism at DCU, graduating with honours in 2016 and did an internship through the University’s INTRA programme at Journal media. That led to the offer of more work and she is now an established member of the writing team covering a variety of sports but with a special interest in the Women’s sport side of things.

She doubles up working on the PR team for the Cavan Ladies Football squad, where possible.

Duffy played on the DCU Ladies Football team and was involved as a reporter on DCUFM during her time in education.

 

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Julian Eberle 2020

Julian Eberle is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Output Sports.  He joined the list in 2020.

The company gained a commercialisation grant from Enterprise Ireland in 2018 and Eberle has led the company’s software development from that point.

They make a single wearable device that tracks and analyses multiple components of athletic performance.  They completed a seed funding round of €1.3 million last year including investment from a number of Leinster Rugby Players.

Having gained a first-class honours degree in Science and Theoretical physics from UCD in 2014, he worked for four years in the Data and Analytics division of Citi in Dublin, rising to become Assistant Vice President before leaving to pursue the Output idea alongside Martin O’Reilly and Darragh Whelan.

Aside from his technical expertise, Eberle has also represented Ireland in Olympic Handball.

 

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Sophie Eustace 2018

Sophie joined the list in 2018 when she was a Senior Account Executive at Wilson Hartnell PR.  While there she managed communications for the Irish Olympic team at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea.

That kind of experience must have whetted her appetite for adventure because in March 2020 she became a Communications Specialist for Red Bull, where she has shone.

She studied at UCD before gaining a Masters in Public Relations from the Dublin Institute of Technology and joined Wilson Hartnell in 2015.

She is an accomplished rower, acting as Cox for the Men’s Intermediate Crew at Commercials Rowing Club where she also serves as Honorary Secretary.

 

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Rebecca Evans  2020

Rebecca took the brave step of establishing her own representation agency VOS Sport in May 2021, emboldened no dount by the stunning success of her principal client Rachael Blackmore at Cheltenham and Aintree in the months before that.

Prior to this, she was Head of Partnerships and Athlete Management at Line Up Sports.

She joined there after 5 years of working in marketing and sponsorship roles including a period with Wilson Hartnell where she worked on some of the biggest sponsorships and sporting events in the country including the Guinness Six Nations, The 148th Open at Royal Portrush and FBD’s Team Ireland sponsorship.

Evans has worked alongside some of Ireland’s top sporting talent, managing their commercial activity away from the pitch. The players on the roster include Jordan Larmour, Kellie Harrington, Rob Kearney, Rachael Blackmore and her Sister Nikki.

Having studied at University College Dublin where she earned a Bachelor of Commerce Degree, Evans went on to graduate with a Masters in Digital Marketing at UCD’s Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in 2015. She continues to play top-division hockey with EY Hockey League side Old Alex.

 

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Judith Faherty 2020

Judith is a Journalist with the Irish Field Newspaper and Assistant Editor of the Dublin Horse Show Magazine.

Starting as an intern in November 2015, she was quickly offered a full-time role. She specialises in reporting on international sport horse events and has travelled the world covering competitions from the 2018 World Championships in North Carolina USA, the 2019 FEI European Championships in The Netherlands and was on course to cover the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer, hopefully, an assignment merely postponed by twelve months.

She writes weekly features and news stories and creates video content for the newspaper and its online platforms.

A native of Galway, she graduated from the University of Limerick with a BA degree in Journalism and New Media.

 

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Ruth Fahy 2018

Ruth Fahy has been a vocal advocate of Women’s football in Ireland, a regular media commentator and had just started working as a solicitor trainee at William Fry having been forced to give up playing when she was nominated for the list in 2018.

The following year she was co-commentator for RTÉ alongside George Hamilton at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.

As a player, Fahy played for Castlebar, Galway United and Wexford Youths and represented Ireland at the World University Games.  While playing she studied law at the University of Limerick and Nottingham Trent University as well as earning a degree in Human Nutrition at Dublin Institute of Technology.

In August 2021 she became the first woman to become CEO at a League of Ireland football club when taking the reins at Galway WFC.  This will be her first full season in the hot seat and we look forward to following her as the year progresses

 

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So who do you think is worthy of inclusion this year?

Who do you work with that has shone over the past twelve months or more and is deserving of recognition as they rise through their career?

 

Criteria

The criteria for submission is that the person should be working within the sports industry, or in a sponsorship or agency capacity that is bringing sport to life, and that they should be born in or after 1992.

You are invited to submit names and a short precis of why an individual deserves to be recognised below.

Our ambition from the start has been to create a network of people making a real difference within our industry.

Who should we be looking to for the next wave of excellence?

This is not the time to be shy, this is an opportunity to put forward those you have come across that have struck you as having real potential, or indeed for you to put yourself forward.

It’s not about where you are now. It’s all about where you could get to with the right breaks.