Deirdre is CONNECT’s Social Entrepreneur in Residence and is CEO of Rethink Ireland. Rethink Ireland (formerly Social Innovation Fund Ireland) aims to find and back the best social innovations in Ireland each year with grants and non-financial supports targeting growth.

Deirdre has twenty years’ experience of changing the world one step at a time, sometimes by leading and other times as part of a team in some of Ireland’s leading non-profit organisations.

Deirdre was previously CEO of ONE Foundation and held senior roles in fundraising & communications with Oxfam and Barnardos. She has also held multiple board directorships.

Uniting all this is Deirdre’s passion for social change, globally and locally, and a strong belief in the power of philanthropy and the ordinary citizen to change things – often faster than we think.

She especially loves doing start-ups, having done 7 in the last ten years. The rest of the time she loves to travel, and recently learned to ride a horse!