Insights

A dualist researcher, Alison has worked with Irish, UK and International brands and services during her 30-year research career. Originally from the UK, Alison studied Consumer Sciences in Newcastle upon Tyne before embarking on a Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) research and customer experience journey.
She has been in Ireland and with Amárach for the past 12 years, where she remains hands-on with various research projects and leads the research & ops teams.

Michael is co-founder and Executive Chairman of ‘East Coast Bakehouse’, Ireland's only commercial scale biscuit producer and also co-founder and Chairman of ‘The Company of Food’, a specialist food investment business. He is the current Chairman of The Housing Agency.

Beyond his leadership in food innovation, he has played key roles in An Bord Bia, Marketing Institute of Ireland, Grow Dublin Tourism Alliance, and many other influential organisations. He also serves as a judge for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

David stepped off the track in 2013 after a successful athletics career which included winning Ireland’s first sprint gold medal in 76 years when winning the European Indoor 400m championships in 2005, he went on to retained his title in 2009 and became an Olympian in 2008. A major goal for David was to compete in a global 400m final and 2009 he achieved just that, when finishing 6th in the Berlin World Championships. He still holds both the indoor and outdoor Irish 400m records.

Post his athletics career David went from full time corporate employment to the winning celebrity MasterChef and more recently was one of only three contestants to pass RTE’s gruelling hit TV show, Hellweek.

David’s core passions and values are built around fitness, food and promoting a healthy body and mind and has become a vocal advocate on mental health.

He has written two bestselling books, David Gillick's Kitchen and Back On Track, David's 4 part plan to a healthy lifestyle, in which David talks openly and honestly about his struggles with mental health post a sporting career and the strategies he used in recovery.

Today, David works in a number of areas mainly corporate wellness, performance and media. He is a regular sports correspondence for RTE covering all major sporting events including the Olympic Games.

Passionate about Irish sport and the voice of the athlete, David is a founding member of the Olympic Federation Of Ireland’s Athlete Commission and currently sits on Sport Ireland’s Anti-doping committee.

Aimee Connolly is one of Ireland’s most recognisable and loved beauty entrepreneurs and she can usually be found hard at work on her award-winning cosmetics range, Sculpted by Aimee. Sculpted by Aimee is one of the fastest-growing Irish beauty brands in the market. The company currently employs more than seventy staff and it plans to soon become a globally recognised brand. Winner of the 2021 EY Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and now sitting on the EY Entrepreneur of the Year judging panel, Aimee is a qualifi ed makeup artist with more than 12 years of experience.

Sculpted by Aimee now has stores in Dublin, Kildare, Belfast and London.

John Hegarty has been central to the global advertising scene over six decades working with brands such as Levi's, Audi, Boddingtons, Lynx, British Airways and Johnnie Walker. He was a founding partner of Saatchi and Saatchi in 1970. He co-founded Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 1982 with John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. The Agency now has offices in London, New York, Singapore, Stockholm, Shanghai, Mumbai and Los Angeles. John’s creative awards are numerous. He has been given the D&AD President's Award for outstanding achievement and in 2014 was admitted to the US AAF Hall of Fame. John was awarded a Knighthood in 2007 and was the recipient of the first Lion of St Mark award at the Cannes Festival of Creativity in 2011. John has written two books: ‘Hegarty on Advertising – Turning Intelligence into Magic’ and "Hegarty on Creativity - there are no rules". In 2014 John co-founded The Garage Soho, an early stage investment company that believes in building brands, not just businesses. In 2022 John co-founded The Garage Entertainment, which aims to unlock creative potential through inspiring, distinctive and entertaining products.