Irish Roundtable in the Valley

Alan Carson is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Cloudsmith.
A software engineer by trade, he began his career building websites for the BBC before the dot-com bubble burst. Alan has worked on Wall Street, in the sleepy Cotswold countryside, the swamps in Louisiana, and the big smoke of Belfast. 
A pragmatic entrepreneur with a relentless ambition to build a world-class product-led technology company in Northern Ireland and IPO it. 
Alan lives with his wife, two dogs, and a mischievous cat, on a windy drumlin in County Down, plagued with bad internet.

Andrew Broderick currently serves as co-director of the San Francisco Tech Council, a mission-driven, multi-sector collaborative that advances digital inclusion for older adults and people with disabilities. 

SF Tech Council serves as the community table around which leaders from the City’s technology and business sectors, local government agencies, community-based organizations, philanthropy, and academia come together to share information, contribute ideas and solve problems collaboratively. 

In this role, Andrew has addressed digital equity from different perspectives and across diverse communities through programming, pilot implementations, community-centered events, and advocacy for supportive policy and funding. 

Broderick previously led digital health research and evaluation efforts at the Public Health Institute, served as Research Director at the Health Technology Center, and was a management consultant at SRI International conducting assessments of emerging technologies and new healthcare business opportunities for global clients.

Anne J. Flanagan is an international policy expert in Data and Artificial Intelligence, as well as an economist and strategic technology and business leader. With over 18 years of global experience across five continents, including extensive work in the EU and the United States, she now advises senior technology executives on managing risk at the intersection of Data, AI, and governance.

Anne began her career in the Irish government and EU institutions, where she spent over a decade shaping Ireland’s technical policy and diplomatic strategy on EU legislation related to telecoms, digital infrastructure, and data. She represented Ireland in high-level fora such as the EU Digital Single Market Strategic Group at the European Commission and the Council of the EU’s Working Party on Telecommunications and the Information Society. During this time, she contributed foundational work to the EU’s Digital Single Market and helped shape its early approach to AI governance.

Since relocating to the U.S. in 2019, Anne has held senior roles in technology policy in the private sector, advising business leaders on responsible and sustainable innovation. At the World Economic Forum, she led a global portfolio on data policy and governance, including leading early work on agentic AI. She later joined Meta Platforms Inc. in San Francisco, where she developed cross-product policy strategy for Meta’s Reality Labs. Most recently, Anne served as Vice President for Artificial Intelligence at the Future of Privacy Forum, where she founded and led the FPF Center for AI.

Award: Equality Diaspora Ambassador Award 2023

Betty Yee stepped down as Controller of the State of California in January 2023, after eight years in post.

She will be a Gubernatorial candidate in California in 2026.

Betty has 35 years of experience in state and local finance and tax policy.  She was elected to the California State Board of Equalization in 2006 and re-elected in 2010, representing close to 9 million Californians.  Prior to this, Betty served as the State’s budget director.

As controller, Betty has been on the side of the community— holding government accountable, working to ensure income and retirement security, protecting our environment, and taking on big companies more interested in lining their pockets — to make sure the doors of opportunity continue to stay open so every Californian can fulfill their dreams, raise their families, and thrive.

Ciara Traynor, from County Meath, is Ireland’s Deputy Consul General based in San Francisco.
 
Ciara’s career to date spans across three decades, including twenty years working in the technology, design, and innovation sector and nine years in the fintech and banking sector, three years of which were spent working on-site with projects in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Ciara started working with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Ireland in 2012.  As Deputy Director of Communications she worked on several change management projects including development of the award winning Digital Ireland House (Ireland.ie) portal before taking up her current position.
 
Ciara’s role at the Consulate is primarily tech-focussed and aims to gain a more comprehensive understanding of technology’s impact on a global scale. 
 

Claire Lee has spent 20+ years at the intersection of capital, banking, and innovation, connecting founders to capital. As Head of Startups, VC & PE Banking at CBW, she’s building the bank to back them: a new digital-first platform purpose-built for the startup ecosystem. Claire is also Venture Partner at Hallstone Ventures out of Los Angeles, investing in AI-native media and entertainment startups. Claire is an advisor to the RAND Corporation and the U.S. Department of State and through her own firm, Mother Funder, she convenes rooms of extraordinary women. Previously, Claire was a Global Ambassador at SVB Capital and Head of Startup Banking at SVB. Prior to this spent a decade at Microsoft. She is native to Ireland and resides in California.

Colm Ó Riain coordinates philanthropic strategy and hiring to support the growth plans of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, CA . After 15 years working in the video game industry at companies including Electronic Arts and Activision, he moved into philanthropy work at Zynga.org and Harmony Project before joining MIRI in 2016. He has a master’s degree in AI from the University of Rochester and a joint honours bachelor’s in Mathematics and Computer Science. The Machine Intelligence Research Institute carrys out foundational mathematical research to ensure smarter-than-human artificial intelligence has a positive impact.

Colm is also a professional violinist and composer and ws hailed as a “genius fiddler” by Mike Scott of The Waterboys,

In the USA, which he currently calls home, he has enthralled audiences on stages as diverse as CBGB’s in New York to Fillmore West and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.  

Colm thrives when creating bridges not just between musics but also to other art forms and has composed music for both film and modern dance.   

Irish Olympian | Co-founder Athletehub | Loughborough University Alumnus and Published Researcher in High Performance Sport. The performance intelligence layer designed for high performance sports teams. 

As a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in algorithmic trading, fintech, and big data, I’ve founded and successfully scaled multiple ventures across the U.S. and Europe. My passion lies in creating purposeful technology—products designed to empower individuals and bridge global gaps.

Professional Highlights:
• Early pioneer at List Group (now Ion Trading), a company that contributed to the development of some of the earliest algorithmic and high-frequency trading systems and electronic stock exchanges.
• Co-founded a proprietary trading desk, achieving $1B in monthly trading volume by age 26.
• Founded Axwave, recognized among Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing companies (ranked #53, Inc. 500, 2014-2017), leading to a successful acquisition.
• Secured over $25M in venture funding throughout my career.

Currently, I’m CEO at Streetbeat, an AI-driven fintech platform democratizing Finacial AI previously exclusive to professional investors and hedge funds. Streetbeat holds 15 patents (9 already granted) and raised a $17M seed round after joining Stanford’s alumni prestigious StartX accelerator.

AI Con 02 Oct 2025 Declan Keeney BIO

Professor Declan Keeney, PhD, FRSA, SFHEA, is Co- Founder & CEO of Studio Ulster Ltd, a £72m next- generation virtual production studio and creative tech company based at Belfast Harbour Studios, a pillar innovation project of the Belfast Region City Deal. Declan in a global leader in real-time screen technologies and holds a Chair in Screen Technologies & Innovation at Ulster University. He is Director of the CoSTAR Screen Lab, overseeing £12m in R&D investment. A board member of the British Film Institute and Northern Ireland Governor, he has secured over £91.5m in R&D&I investment funding, co-leads several major UKRI-funded national initiatives in virtual production, and founded the Ulster Screen Academy— home to the UK and Ireland’s first university-based VP studio.

Gary Gilchrist is Vice President of Software Architecture at Oracle for the Oracle Health Suite, where he and his team lead architecture and design for Oracle’s AI based Oracle Health EHR and its component systems in the Oracle Cloud. This involved completely reimagining the systems architecture for today’s electronic health records management around Oracle’s latest cloud native services for runtime, data management, UX and AI, while still working alongside existing critical systems of record at hospitals and clinics.

Gary left Belfast back in 1993 to start his career at Oracle working on Oracle Networking and Database Security. He went on to hold senior engineering roles at BlackBerry and Adobe where he led innovations in mobile and enterprise security, and rejoined Oracle again in 2020. He lives in San Francisco where he enjoys foggy hill walks and always discovering something new about the diverse history of his adopted city.

Jacinta is a globally recognized technology leader, named as one of the top 50 most influential women in technology by Silicon Valley Global magazine.

Jacinta is a category creator and has deep expertise in bringing game changing AI technology to market. She has led all go to market functions including sales, marketing, business development and customer retention for AI companies for 15 years. She was Global SVP Sales and CMO at Cloudmark, a company that applies AI to provide messaging security for 2 billion online users and brand protection for major banks and retailers. Most recently she ran go to market for LeoLabs, a company that applies AI to monitor and predict all satellite traffic in space. She has contributed to several exits achieving valuations ranging from $150M to $12.3B.

In addition to her full-time roles, Jacinta is an advisor to companies on GTM planning and exit strategies. 

Jacinta has also been a long-term board member and ambassador of M3AAWG, a global working group that fosters cooperation between international governments and commercial entities to increase global online security.

Now living in San Francisco, Jacinta is originally from County Clare and graduated from Dublin City University with a degree in International Marketing and Languages. 

Jack Chambers is the Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin West. He is the Minister for Finance in the Government of Ireland and Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil.

He previously served in Government as at the Government Chief Whip and was also Minister of State for Sport, the Gaeltacht & Defence from 2020 to 2022 and as Minister of State, attending Cabinet, in the Department of Transport and the Department of the Environment, Climate & Communications from 2022 to 2024.

He was elected to Dáil Éireann on his first attempt in the February 2016 General Election and was re-elected in the 2020 General Election.

Before entering the Dáil, he served as a Fingal County Councillor and as Deputy Mayor.

Born in Galway, Jack moved to Dublin West at a young age and is involved with many local community groups and sports organisations. He is a Medical Doctor having studied Medicine at the RCSI and he holds an honours degree in Law & Political Science from Trinity College.

A graduate of Morehouse College and Stanford Law School, Jarrell Cook has more than a decade of experience in legislative, regulatory, and legal advocacy. He is the Senior Manager of State and Local Government Affairs at Workday, where he is directly involvedconversations with policymakers across the country as they grapple with issues arising from artificial intelligence and the future of work. Outside of Workday, he serves on the board of the Equal Freedom Institute. Previously, Jarrell worked as a Policy Director for the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, and as an associate attorney at the Washington, DC offices of Jenner & Block. He lives in Sacramento with his wife and their 3 children.

Jennifer Byrne is General Partner at Grit Capital Partners, an early-stage, specialist venture fund investing in Applied AI across FinTech/InsurTech, Commerce, Media, and MarTech. In 2024, she co-founded the Female Investors Club in Los Angeles and New York, a community advancing women in technology investing through leadership development, education, and deal flow.

Previously, she co-founded and led Quesnay Inc., a strategy and innovation firm known for global accelerators and executive programs. Quesnay partnered with major corporations including Farmers Insurance, Hearst, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Paramount, Prudential, Thomson Reuters, and Verizon. Quesnay also launched the world’s largest Female Founders in FinTech & InsurTech accelerator, evaluating 500+ women-led startups from 78 countries, which collectively raised over $1.8B.

Earlier, Jennifer held executive roles at American Express and Verizon. At Verizon, she launched its innovation division, oversaw a multi-billion-dollar mobile application portfolio, led the rollout of 4G services, and championed investments in Siri and Twilio, alongside partnerships with Amazon, Facebook, Google/YouTube, and Twitter.

She serves on the Duke University SoCal Board, co-chairs the Duke Women’s Forum SoCal, and has been recognized on Innovate Finance’s Powerlist, NYC Inspiring FinTech Females, and more. A Duke graduate, she speaks Spanish, Italian, and French.

Laura Hilgart is an effective advocate with experience serving a wide range of clients on both coasts. Before joining New Deal, she worked as a lobbyist for SF Platinum Advisors and at O’Neill and Associates – a public affairs, government relations, and crisis communications firm in Boston. 

Previously, Laura worked at the French Consulate in Boston, Senator Kerry’s Office in Washington D.C., and the Associacion de Igualdad y Justicia in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is currently a member of the Urban Land Institute, the SF Bike Coalition, SPUR, Leadership San Francisco, the Alliance Francaise de San Francisco, and the Associate Board of Generation Citizen. Laura graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in International Relations.

Born in Broadford, Limerick, Reidy won a green card in 1994 and has lived in San Francisco since 1997. Like so many Irish immigrants, he maintains strong ties to Ireland. He visits whenever possible with his wife and four children.

Speaking about his own relationship to Ireland he says “My connection to Ireland holds a very special place in my heart. It’s a deep-rooted bond that signifies a sense of belonging and heritage.”

Living in the United States, Reidy celebrates and promotes Ireland through his work at the UICC. He says, “In San Francisco, my involvement in the Irish community has been a truly rewarding experience.

Matt McGuire is a technology executive and AI leader with a focus on driving innovation at the intersection of data, software engineering, and artificial intelligence. As VP of Data and AI at Unosquare, he leads AI and technology strategy, helping organizations adopt and scale modern AI capabilities. His work includes architecting AI-powered solutions, building developer-focused AI tooling, and assembling high-performing teams to deliver impactful client outcomes.

With decades of experience spanning both hands-on engineering and executive leadership, Matt has designed and implemented enterprise SaaS platforms and led global teams across industries including human resources, identity protection, data privacy, and cybersecurity. He is particularly focused on how AI is transforming software development and enabling new levels of productivity and quality.

Matt is a strong advocate of pragmatic AI adoption, servant leadership, and continuous learning. He regularly shares insights on navigating the rapidly evolving AI landscape and how organizations can translate emerging technologies into real business value..

Michael McMahon is a Software Developer at Options IT, where he has spent over two and a half years contributing to the company’s technology portfolio. Originally from Belfast, Michael’s journey with programming began at age nine, cultivating an early-onset technical fluency that shapes his approach to building software systems. He now leads development of the Private Mind software stack, working closely with AI systems to create a secure, enterprise-grade private AI platform tailored for the financial sector. His experience spans full-stack development, database architecture, and AI model integration, with a focus on delivering iron-clad security that meets the industry’s demanding standards. Michael brings a practical, security-first mindset to Options’ growing AI ecosystem.

Michael McNamara was elected to the European Parliament to represent the Ireland South constituency in June 2024.

Michael is Co-Chair of the European Parliament’s Working Group on the Implementation and Enforcement of the AI Act. He serves as a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and is Co-Rapporteur for the Digital Omnibus on AI. Michael is also a substitute member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and Shadow Rapporteur for the Digital Omnibus. 

He is also Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia (DSAS), and substitute member of the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.

Before his election to the European Parliament, Michael represented the Clare constituency as a member of the Irish parliament from 2011 until 2016, and again from 2020 until 2024. 

As a national politician, he was appointed Chair of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Response in 2020 and Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Drug Use in 2024.

Michael is a barrister and a farmer.

Micheál Smith, from County Armagh, is Ireland’s Consul General in the Western United States. 

Prior to moving to San Francisco, Micheál was Director of Global Ireland in the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

He led Ireland’s Embassy/Consulate expansion, Ireland’s presence at Expo 2020, the development of ireland.ie, and campaigns to increase Irish citizen engagement with Ireland’s global role, among other initiatives

He started his career as an Economic Analyst in the Department of Communications and Energy based in Dublin before taking up a First Secretary role in the Embassy of Ireland in Singapore. Micheál went on to establish IDA Ireland’s first ASEAN office, which he led for 3 years.

Micheál then moved to help drive IDA Ireland’s efforts in the US, focusing on the US Mid-West, South and South-East.

Micheál holds a BSC in Management (Business & Economics) from Queen’s University Belfast and a MSC in Economic Policy Studies from Trinity College Dublin. He is married to Claire and they have four children – Sophie, Senan, Conan and Oisín.

Neil leads a non-profit organisation with a mission to accelerate and double the size of the software industry in Northern Ireland. The organisation focuses on key factors impacting industry growth such as schools, skills, sales and ensuring companies surf the waves of change including AI. Neil’s background spans Technology Consulting, Economic Policy, Human Rights and Documentary Photography.     

Paul Greaney is a Lecturer in Computing at Atlantic Technological University, where he teaches across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in machine learning, data science, and mathematics. He holds BSc and PhD degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Galway and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Before joining ATU, Paul spent three years as a Deep Learning Research Engineer with Valeo Vision Systems, developing computer vision algorithms for autonomous driving applications. His research interests are in deep learning applied to computer vision and natural language processing, and he collaborates regularly with industry partners on projects spanning process optimisation, software integration, AI, and data analytics.

Peter is General Counsel and SVP of Tech Policy for the Bay Area Council. 

He began his legal career in Intellectual Property litigation and has also worked as In-House Counsel for a financial advisory firm. In addition to his experience in Silicon Valley, he served as a Deputy District Attorney for over five years, where he prosecuted narcotics crimes, violent offenses, and financial crimes.

Peter is a former elected Council Member in Gilroy and served two terms as Mayor Pro Tem.

He holds a B.A. in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Peter is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Rónán Mac Con Iomaire is Director of Regional, Community Development & Language Planning, and is responsible for micro-enterprise, language planning and community development, among other areas.

Previously, he was RTÉ’s Group Head of Irish Language and Leascheannaire (Deputy Head) of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.  Rónán has a background in media and entrepreneurship, having spent many years working as an award-winning journalist, as Local Government Correspondent for Nuacht RTÉ and TG4, as well as for publications such as the Irish Independent, Evening Herald and Irish Times.

He has founded several his own companies, operating primarily in the marketing and hospitality sectors.

Rónán was awarded New Writer of the Year for his biography of Irish boxer, Seán Mannion, a book that went on to become the fastest-selling Irish language book of all time and on which the award-winning feature documentary, Rocky Ros Muc, was based. Rowman & Littlefield published his second book, The Man Who Was Never Knocked Down, in 2018.

Rory Herron is the Business Development Director for Invest NI in New York. In this role, Rory works to secure foreign direct investment (FDI) into Northern Ireland from companies headquartered on the US East Coast. His priority in-market is to build the profile of Northern Ireland as a great place to do business and facilitate the creation of highly-skilled jobs in our region. Rory is originally from Limavady, County Derry.

Shawn Flynn is the founder of Silicon Valley Highpoint Capital (SVH Capital), where he and his team uses AI and technology to help in the steps of the transaction process. He began his career in Beijing, China, founding, scaling, and successfully exiting a company before returning to the U.S. to work with fast‑growing Silicon Valley startups to established overseas public companies. He specializes in mergers & acquisitions, raising growth capital, and secondaries.

Successful entrepreneur and senior executive, 25 years experience building great companies in online and mobile sectors

Specialties: Big Data, Market Research and Intelligence, Mobile Applications and Content, Digital Media, Consumer Electronics, Telecommunications, Speech Technology, AI

Shona Carson, VP Security Analytics – Options Technology, New York.

Options is a leading provider of technology to the financial industry, delivering trading infrastructure, market data, cloud services, and managed IT solutions. I began my career at Options’ Belfast office before relocating to New York, where I now bridge the data analytics and security teams. In this role, I have built out our in-house managed detection and response platform (Artemis MDR) – a solution that serves hundreds of clients.

With expertise securing some of the financial sector’s most high-value and complex environments, my experience spans threat detection and response, security investigations and analysis, and the end-to-end delivery of security products across a large and diverse client base.

AI executive at Google driving intelligent operations at global scale. Former Deloitte and Accenture leader with deep consulting pedigree. Startup advisor and board director focused on building AI-powered platforms that transform industries.

I transform organizations through Artificial Intelligence. At Google, I lead AI-powered operations for Search, embedding Generative AI, LLMs, and automation into core systems to deliver predictive resilience and intelligent automation at global scale. These AI-first processes touch billions of users daily.

With leadership experience at Deloitte and Accenture, I combine consulting pedigree with hands-on technology expertise to drive transformation across Fortune 100 clients and startups. I’ve scaled platforms worth hundreds of millions of dollars, delivering measurable impact through AI solutions for online safety, content integrity, and workforce intelligence.

At Accenture, I led developer ecosystems globally and built a software engineering team that created a suite of groundbreaking AI tools for content moderation — among the first of their kind — alongside an AI-enabled workforce management platform used by tens of thousands of agents worldwide.

At DigiMod, I scaled AI-driven trust & safety services and launched proprietary platforms supporting enterprise-scale Big Tech clients.

At Deloitte, I advised Fortune 100 clients on embedding AI into telecom, media, and technology transformation — and led the design and delivery of OTT platforms for Discovery Channel, Sky Sports, and ITV, reshaping how digital content is created, distributed, and monetized.

Today, I advise the cybersecurity startup PhishCloud, shaping AI-powered Cyber Fusion services, and serve as West Coast Chair of Young Enterprise Foundation, mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

My mission: to fuse executive leadership, startup agility, and AI innovation to transform organizations at scale.

Tom Kelly is based in San Francisco and has been an angel investor in software, life sciences and education startups since 1999. Notable private market investments include Ironclad, Jasper, Meta, Praisidio, Prolific, Replit and Spellbrush.

Tom is originally from Co. Roscommon, Ireland and moved to the US in 1995 to attend business school at MIT. He previously qualified and worked as a pharmacist in the UK. After business school, Tom spent fifteen years as an investment banker, where his focus was on helping emerging companies raise capital from VC firms, hedge funds, mutual funds and strategic investors. From there, he transitioned to investing directly into early stage companies.

Tom lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.