PÁDRAIG Ó CÉIDIGH’S successor as Chairman of Shannon Group has been announced.
Founder and Chair of Fibrus, Conal Henry has on Tuesday been formally appointed as the new Chairperson of Shannon Group.
In his new role, he will be chairing meetings of Shannon Group which is responsible for Shannon Airport, Shannon Commercial Properties and IASC.
Fibrus is a telecommunications provider in existence for over two years, in January of 2021 it was awarded the Department for the Economy’s Project Stratum contract, a four-year build to improve regional broadband connectivity to almost 80,000 homes in Northern Ireland. He has spent decades working in the telecommunications industry.
Conal also chairs the £500m HM Treasury backed National Digital Infrastructure Fund based in London. Prior to this he was CEO of enet taking it from start up to its £200m acquisition by the Irish Infrastructure Fund in 2017, as CEO of Enet, Conal also lead what is now known as NBI to become the winning bidder for the €2bn Irish National Broadband Plan.
He was also Commercial Director at Ryanair, spending two years working under Michael O’Leary during this time the company grew from handling 6.5 million passengers, to 22 million, he also served on the Board of Shannon Foynes Port Company. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and holds a law degree from Queen’s University Belfast.
Henry previously was Head of Finance for Non Food and George Clothing at Asda in the UK. Hebegan his career at Procter & Gamble and is also Vice Chair of An Cosán.
Since the establishment of Shannon Group a decade ago, there have been three Chairpersons, New Quay native Rose Hynes, Aaron Forde whose appointment was revoked within a matter of hours in February of last year and Pádraig Ó Céidigh who resigned from the role last week having just taken on the post in September 2021.
