Ireland’s cybersecurity leaders come from unusually hands-on backgrounds. Among the seven below are a former electronics technician who spent nearly 20 years on repair and communications benches, a quality engineer who started out testing software at Ericsson in Athlone, and a SharePoint architect who became a CISO. Others came through data center sales, IBM penetration testing, and a decade of contract security work across Dublin’s banks and law firms. Today they protect a national bank, Dublin’s bus network, a telecom provider’s business arm, a renewable energy technology company, and several of the country’s service and export businesses.
Paul Ryan – Group Chief Security and Resilience Officer, AIB
Paul Ryan started as a network engineer at Thomson Scientific and ran IT at Merrion before joining Integrity360 in 2007. Over more than nine years there he worked as a cybersecurity engineer, incident responder, and principal consultant, finishing as head of cybersecurity strategy. He became CISO of Ulster Bank in 2016, also serving as interim CIO in 2018. At Dell Technologies he served as Global Chief Security Officer and then VP of the Security and Resiliency Organisation. Ryan joined AIB as Group CISO in October 2023 and has served as Group Chief Security and Resilience Officer since October 2025. He also sits on the board of the Cyber Defence Alliance.
Karl Kilmurray – CISO, Dublin Bus
Karl Kilmurray spent six years at IBM, first as a cybersecurity engineer focused on penetration testing and then as a cybersecurity compliance lead. He moved to Ekco as a senior information security consultant, delivering CISO-as-a-service to state and semi-state bodies and conducting NIS Directive assessments for operators of essential services and critical infrastructure providers. Kilmurray became CISO of Dublin Bus in September 2024. He runs the operator’s cyber program and team, oversees governance, risk, and compliance, and reports to the board, senior leadership, and regulators. He holds degrees in computer science and cybersecurity and is a certified ISO 27001 auditor.
Adnan Ahmed – Head of ICT & CISO, Ornua
Adnan Ahmed began as a technical lead and software engineer building .NET web applications at CRISS, then worked for DAR InfoTech, part of the DAR Al Riyadh Group. In Ireland he built a career as a SharePoint consultant and architect at Storm Technology, PM Centrix, and Version 1, working with clients including Xilinx and the Department of Transport. At Kerry Group he helped set up a global SharePoint competency center. Ahmed joined Ornua in 2017 as Enterprise Architect and CISO and has served as Head of ICT and CISO since February 2019, covering IT, OT, and cloud security. He sits on the VigiTrust Global Advisory Board and the Vation Ventures Innovation Advisory Council, and holds C-CISO, CISSP, and TOGAF certifications.
Geraldine Powderly – CISO & VP, SkySpecs
Geraldine Powderly spent more than eight years in software quality assurance at Ericsson in Athlone, followed by quality and validation engineering roles at Boston Scientific, Nortel, and Avaya. She moved into security at Synchronoss Technologies in Galway, where she spent eight years as Director of Global Security Operations, leading five teams covering the SOC, vulnerability management, penetration testing, identity, and security engineering. As CISO of Channel Mechanics she took the company to ISO 27001 certification and SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliance. Powderly joined SkySpecs, a renewable energy technology company, as CISO and VP in June 2022. She leads technology, cybersecurity, and AI strategy across four product lines, built the company’s ISO 27001 program, and established an AI governance strategy aligned with ISO 42001. She has spoken at ISC2 Security Congress.
Eoin O’hEochaidh – CSO & CISO, Carne Group
Eoin O’hEochaidh spent more than ten years as Information Security Manager at Elavon Financial Services. He then managed information security operations at ICON plc and IT security operations at Investec, working across Dublin and London. From 2017 he worked as a contract security specialist for Smartbox Group, MetLife, Workhuman, and KBC Bank Ireland, and as interim information security officer at the law firm McCann FitzGerald. O’hEochaidh joined Carne Group as Chief Security Officer and CISO in February 2022. He has more than 30 years of experience across legal, retail, financial services, and pharmaceuticals.
Pádraigh Griffin – CISO, eir business
Pádraigh Griffin started as a networking and communications technician at RK Communication in 2000. He moved between sales and technical roles at Temple Connectivity and Radius Technologies, ran his own firm, Sparcom Services, and led data infrastructure at Unity Technology Solutions and Nostra. After a stint as COO of CloudStrong and as a data center specialist at Viatel, he spent more than five years as COO and CIO of EVAD Technology Group and CloudFire, then served as EVAD’s chief commercial officer. Griffin was CEO of the Irish Information Security Agency before becoming CISO of eir business in January 2026. He also lectures in cybersecurity and GRC at IBAT College Dublin and holds CCISO, CCSK, and CCZT certifications along with an MBA.
James McElhinney – CISO, TEKenable
James McElhinney started as an electronic technician at Europlex Technologies in 1998. He then spent nearly 20 years at BP Multipage, moving from electronic technician to workshop manager, electronic engineer and IT manager, and finally senior communication systems engineer. After two years as a senior consulting engineer at Greenfinch Technology, he joined TEKenable in 2020 as security risk and compliance officer, leading its cyber risk team for clients across the public and private sectors. He became CISO in September 2025, overseeing security, risk, and compliance across the company and the customer environments it manages. He holds a CISSP and is a Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
Built in Ireland
Most of these leaders built their security careers inside Ireland’s own institutions and industries. McElhinney came up through two decades on electronics and communications benches, Powderly through quality engineering at Ericsson in Athlone, and Ahmed through SharePoint architecture. Griffin moved between technical, commercial, and executive roles across Irish IT firms. O’hEochaidh and Ryan built deep careers in Irish financial services and consultancies, and Kilmurray went from IBM to protecting the buses that move Dublin. Few of them started in security, but each learned the systems first and the threats second, and that grounding shows in how they lead.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.