The Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources, Mr Alex White, TD, today obtained Government approval for the appointment of seven new members of the RTÉ Board.
On the Minister’s nomination, Moya Doherty was appointed as Chair to serve alongside four newly appointed Ministerial nominees; Frank Hannigan, Deborah Kelleher, PJ Matthews, Anne O’Leary. Mr Fergus Armstrong was also reappointed to the Board. In addition, the recently elected RTÉ staff representative, Mr Aengus Mac Grianna, was appointed by Government. RTÉ director-general Noel Curran is also a member of the Board. Four existing board members, nominated by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, remain in place until their terms expire in February 2015.
Minister White said the new Board members were people of high calibre who had been selected because they had substantial experience, or had shown capacity, under one or more of the required criteria set out in Section 82(1) of the Broadcasting Act 2009. He said he was confident that the new Board would steer RTÉ to greater financial stability and ever closer to its stated objective of becoming a public service multimedia organisation.
Minister White said: “Moya Doherty is a gifted, experienced and successful broadcaster, communicator and businesswoman with the highest reputation both in Ireland and abroad. I am delighted that she has agreed to take on the role of RTÉ Chair, particularly at this challenging time of change in broadcasting and emerging communications technologies.”
Moya Doherty said she was honoured to be appointed to the Chair of the RTÉ Board. “From modest beginnings as a young woman in the late 1970’s I joined RTÉ and through the past 35 years most of my professional life has been in communications and broadcasting in Ireland, the UK and the USA. Creativity and commerce are intertwined in this era of fragmentation and there has never been a greater need for the personality of public service broadcasting to be nurtured and cherished in the midst of this ecology of change.
“The next few years will see RTÉ having to find structures capable of redefining the role of public service broadcasting in a media space transformed by social and digital technologies. I am looking forward to the challenge and privilege of working alongside all who are part of the RTÉ community, internal and external, to help to carve a strong identity for the future for the public service broadcaster,” she said.
Minister White also took the opportunity to express his gratitude to the Chair and outgoing members of the RTÉ Board for the work done under the term of their stewardship.
ENDS
Note to Editors
Biographies of new appointees to the RTÉ Board
Moya Doherty
Moya Doherty’s career includes theatre, radio and television production and presentation, both in Ireland and internationally. She fronted a number of RTÉ arts, features and documentary programmes. As executive producer, Moya produced a number of charity telethons, the Eurovision Song Contest and the televising of the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics held in Ireland in 2003. Moya was the commissioning producer and originator of Riverdance for the Eurovision Song Contest of 1994.
She was a director of Tyrone Productions, one of Ireland’s leading independent television production companies, whose output includes drama, documentary and entertainment programming. She was a founding director of the radio station Today FM.
In the past ten years she has been a member of a number of arts-related boards, including chair of the Dublin International Theatre Festival for seven years; The Ark children’s theatre in Dublin; Walnut Hill Arts School in Massachusetts and Business to Arts. She is a board member of The Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre.
Moya has received numerous awards and accolades over the years, including the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year; the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and honorary doctorates from the University of Ulster and the National University of Ireland in recognition of her ongoing commitment to the world of the arts in Ireland.
Fergus Armstrong
Fergus Armstrong is a panel member of ONE resolve, an interdisciplinary mediation grouping. His previous career was in law practice, first with the family firm now named Hegarty and Armstrong, Sligo, then as company solicitor with Aer Lingus. He later joined the firm of McCann Fitzgerald, where he served as a partner in corporate law, then as managing partner and chairman. His mediation work encompasses disputes involving business and institutions, as well as conflict between individuals. He was educated at Castleknock College, University College Dublin and Harvard Law School.
Frank Hannigan
Frank Hannigan is chairman of App design and build company Razor Communications. He is also chairman of Pathfinders Projects International, which delivers commercialisation projects and manages investment cycles for companies. He works as a senior industry advisor with the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development in projects with technology companies in various developing countries, and with Enterprise Ireland clients including early stage companies, high potential start-ups and spin-outs.
Deborah Kelleher
Appointed director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in October 2010 after working for a number of years as head of musicianship, Deborah Kelleher has played an integral role in the establishment and development of outreach, distance and academic courses in the Academy including the introduction of a specialised undergraduate degree in composition, the RIAM’s first music technology programme and numerous professional development courses for teachers throughout the country. Deborah has also overseen the RIAM’s transition to becoming an associated college of Trinity College Dublin. Deborah studied music at Trinity College Dublin and was subsequently awarded Masters degrees in musicology (UCD) and business administration (DCU). She is recognised as one of Ireland’s finest pianists of her generation. She is a member of the board of the Dublin International Piano Competition, National Youth Orchestra of Ireland and Lyric Opera, and is a member of the Arts Council’s Peer Review Panel. She is also a member of the 12-person Council of the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC), the umbrella body for over 280 conservatoires in Europe.
P.J. Matthews
Dr P.J. Mathews is a senior lecturer in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin who specialises in Irish literature and culture. He is the author of Revival, a study of the Irish Cultural Revival published by Field Day/Cork UP in 2003; editor of the Cambridge Companion to J.M. Synge (2009); and co-editor of A Handbook of the Irish Revival to be published by the Abbey Theatre in 2015. Dr Mathews is the founder and current Director of academic podcasting for UCDscholarcast (www.ucd.ie/scholarcast). He was Director of the Parnell Summer School from 2002-05 and was appointed Naughton Fellow and Visiting Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame for 2007-08. He is an external member of the Irish Studies group at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, and co-convenor of the Irish Studies Doctoral Research Network.
Anne O’Leary
Successful entrepreneur Anne O’Leary is executive chairman of software company KineMatik, which specialises in helping organisations operate more collaboratively, and helping scientists to be more productive. She is also chairman of the mobile compliance audit tool eCAT and cloud-based software tool FenestraPro. She was the founder and managing director of Cadco, which became Datech Ireland after its 2009 acquisition by Computer 2000. She is a member of the advisory board of IGNITE, a University College Cork incubation centre for higher education graduates. She is a member of the Cork Chamber of Commerce.
RTÉ Board Membership at 4 November 2014
Member First Appointed Term-End Date
Moya Doherty 4/11/2014 3/11/2017
Fergus Armstrong* 1/09/2009 3/11/2017
Frank Hannigan 4/11/2014 3/11/2019
Deborah Kelleher 4/11/2014 3/11/2017
P.J. Matthews 4/11/2014 3/11/2019
Anne O’Leary 4/11/2014 3/11/2019
Aengus Mac Grianna** 4/11/2014 3/11/2019
Mr Noel Curran*** 01/02/2011 31/01/2018
Ms Orlaith Carmody 16/02/2010 15/02/2015
Ms Aileen O’Meara 16/02/2010 15/02/2015
Ms Eunice O’Raw 16/02/2010 15/02/2015
Mr Stuart Switzer 16/02/2010 15/02/2015
*Reappointed for a second term on 4 November 2014
**RTÉ Staff representative
***Reappointed for a second term on 1 February 2014