Board and Senior Members
Operating Executive

Board of Directors

Picture of Coillte's Chair, Vivienne Jupp

Vivienne Jupp

Vivienne Jupp was appointed as Chair of the Coillte Board in April 2024. Vivienne is an experienced senior executive, non executive director and chair in the private and public sector. She is a former senior executive in Accenture where she held roles with responsibility for operations and P&L at Irish, European and Global levels.

She is currently the chair of the National Lottery and member of the Board of Fáilte Ireland. She previously chaired the CIE Group, CIE Tours Inc and the Tourism Recovery Taskforce. She has been a member of several other boards in the private and public sector.

Vivienne is an alumnus of University College Dublin and is a recipient of the outstanding alumnus award from the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business.

 

Image of Coillte CEO Imelda Hurley

Imelda Hurley

Imelda Hurley joined Coillte in November 2019 as Chief Executive and was appointed to the Board in January 2022

Imelda is an experienced executive and non-executive director having been a Board Member in public company, state owned, private equity and venture capital backed businesses. She has worked extensively in Ireland, the UK, Eastern Europe, Hong Kong, China and Australia and, as a result, has a strong international mindset. Imelda is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and an alumna of Harvard Business School.

 

Deirdre-Ann Barr 

Deirdre-Ann joined the Board in November 2022.  She is chairperson of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and of The Peter McVerry Trust, the housing and homeless charity. She is a member of the Regulatory Decisions Panel of the Central Bank of Ireland and an independent reviewer for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and the corresponding institute of England and Wales. Until 2019, Deirdre-Ann was General Counsel and Head of Risk in Matheson, a leading Irish law firm where she established the risk management function in 2009.  During the previous ten years, Deirdre-Ann was a solicitor, then partner, in Matheson’s Corporate Department, advising on Irish company law and governance issues.

Deirdre-Ann has a Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors and is a Notary Public.  She has also completed the IoD Leading Sustainability programme and is a member of Chapter Zero.

 

Gerry Gray

Gerry was appointed to the board in 2018. He has more than 35 years’ experience working in senior financial and strategy roles in international blue chip organisations including PwC, Ford Motor Company and Pilkington. Now retired, Gerry holds numerous Non Executive positions in the UK and Ireland.

Picture of Patrick Eamon King

Patrick Eamon King

Patrick Eamon was appointed to the board in 2018. He spent 13 years as Head of Corporate Development with the Ardagh Group SA and now holds the position of Corporate Development Consultant with Paragon Group Ltd.

 

Kevin McCarthy

Kevin was appointed to the Board in May 2020. He began working with Coillte in October 2005 and retired from Coillte in July 2024. His most recent executive role was operations resource manager covering Donegal, West Leitrim and North Sligo. Kevin represented workers on the Fórsa/IMPACT executive between 2013 and 2020 and was elected as an employee director by Fórsa in 2020. He graduated from Oregon State University in 1985 with a degree in Forest Management and is a technical member of the Society of Irish Foresters.

Gerard Murphy

Gerard was appointed to the Board in 2019. Gerard brings with him extensive experience having worked in a variety of senior roles with in Coillte.. He held the position of Managing Director in Coillte Forest Division for 9 years and most recently Managing Director of Coillte of the Land Solutions and Venturing Business within Coillte. Gerard has a B.Agr.Sci (Forestry) and an MBA from UCD.

Eleanor O’Neill

Eleanor was appointed to the board in 2019 and was reappointed in 2024. She has more than 30 years’ experience working in digital transformation roles in technology multinationals, Symantec, Visio, Microsoft, Marrakech, and Digital Equipment Corporation. Eleanor also serves as a non-executive director of Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) and the National Transport Authority (NTA).  She is an Engineering graduate of NUI Galway.  In addition, she has post graduate qualifications in Systems Analysis from NUIG, Cybersecurity from UCD and Corporate Governance from the Institute of Directors Ireland.