Techonology and The Future of Work

Keith Griffin - Site Leader & Distinguished Engineer at Cisco 

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Keith Griffin joined Cisco’s Collaboration Technology Group in 2007 and is a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco focused on AI and Machine Learning in the office of CTO. He works on features that include Webex Assistant, Noise Removal, Relationship Intelligence, Facial recognition, Meeting Transcription and more. Keith works with customers, partners and analysts to ensure that technology direction is aligned with market needs. He leads Cisco’s Collaboration IP, Patent and Research strategy and has been Cisco’s top inventor for collaboration technology for over ten years. Keith holds a PhD from the University of Limerick in Ireland related to the use of Representational State Transfer (REST) programmable interface design for real time communication in web browsers. His major in computer engineering at university was virtual reality in manufacturing environments. 

 LinkedIn Profile‌

James McGlennon - Executive Vice President & Global Chief Information Officer, Liberty Mutual

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James McGlennon has more than 35 years’ experience leading global technology organizations across Insurance, Telecommunications and Banking industries. He leads the digital technology transformation at Liberty Mutual, directing a team of 10,000 across the globe with annual budget in excess of $2B. Over the past decade he directed technology M&A for multi-billion-dollar acquisitions. James spearheaded the technology to support the industry leading growth through digital transformation, process simplification, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Under James’ direction, Liberty Mutual earned a spot on the 2020 and 2021 Computerworld “Best Places to work in IT” list. James was named to the Forbes CIO Next 2021 list, received the 2019 Irish American Magazine “Business 100 Award” and earned a CIO of the Year® ORBIE Award® from BostonCIO in 2018. He was also a finalist in 2022 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award.

Before joining Liberty Mutual, James led a 3500 strong team of software developers at BellSouth corporation in Atlanta GA. There he drove the broadband transformation software build for global support and complex billing. Earlier in his career he worked in high tech manufacturing and completed a year long international assignment in Africa.

James is chairman of Liberty IT, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual Insurance with offices in Belfast and Dublin. He holds bachelor and master’s degrees in engineering from the University of Galway and has completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

 LinkedIn Profile‌

Ann Nolan - Co-founder & Chief Growth Officer, Snobal

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Born and bred in Ireland but now living in Melbourne, Australia, Ann is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Snobal, a technology company with a market-leading enterprise metaverse platform. Founded in 2014 the company counts Cubic, Telstra, RMIT University, University of Arizona, Dulux, and OzMinerals among some of its customers.

Over her 20+ yrs career, Ann has experience spanning brand and product development, as well as strategy, business, market, and partnership development. In the early part of her career, she worked in community health and health promotion and continues to have a strong interest in health-related endeavours especially through harnessing technologies.

Ann graduated from the University of Galway with a BA (Psychology) and MA in Community Development. She also holds an Adv. Diploma in Screenwriting for Film, TV, and Digital Media from RMIT (Australia).  

 LinkedIn Profile

Prof. Eoin Whelan  - Business Information Systems, University of Galway  

Moderator: Prof. Kate Kenny 

Kate Kenny is Professor of Business and Society. She has held research fellowships at Cambridge University's Judge Business School, and the Edmond J. Safra Lab at Harvard University. Professor Kenny's work has been published in Organization Studies, Gender Work and Organizations, ephemera and Human Relations among other journals. She serves on the editorial boards of two FT50 journals. Her books include Whistleblowing: Toward a New Theory (Harvard University Press, 2019), The Whistleblowing Guide: Speak Up Arrangements, Challenges and Best Practices (Wiley, 2019), Understanding Identity and Organizations (Sage 2011, with A. Whittle and H. Willmott), and Affect at Work: The Psychosocial and Organization Studies (Palgrave 2014, with M. Fotaki).  See www.whistleblowingimpact.org for more details of her current research including articles, reports and video.

Staff Profile