William Kane, aged 51, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Formerly chief executive of Irish Permanent and director of Irish Life & Permanent plc, William has worked in retail banking for over 20 years. He founded Irish Permanent Finance, which today is Ireland's largest vehicle finance business. He went on to become General Manager and subsequently Chief Executive of Irish Permanent where he grew their market share of the residential mortgage market from 17 per cent to 22 per cent and developed the broker distribution channel. He was one of the founding directors of Woodchester Investments plc, which became Ireland's largest independent finance company prior to being acquired by GE Capital.
John Gunn, Deputy Chairman, aged 64, non-executive director.
John is an adviser and investor in UK smaller companies. He is a London businessman and runs his own family company, Scheidegg Limited, specialising in venture capital for high growth early stage companies. He was a director of Woodchester Investments plc and is currently a director of a number of quoted and unquoted companies, primarily in engineering, high technology and property sectors. He studied in Germany and at the University of Nottingham where he received a BA (Hons) in German and an Honorary Doctorate.
Gerry Hunt FCA, aged 47, Finance Director.
Gerry is currently a partner in a specialist risk management consultancy service and previously worked in senior management positions in Irish Life & Permanent plc including general manager of credit finance and risk management in the banking division and senior manager of strategic planning in the life insurance division. Before joining Irish Life & Permanent plc he was group corporate lending manager in National Irish Bank and head of finance in the same group.
Gary Kennedy FCA, aged 50,Non-Executive Director.
Gary was a member of the AIB Board and served as Group Director for Finance and Enterprise Technology from May 1997 until December 2005. He also was a member of several AIB subsidiaries including M&T Bank, AIB's partner in the United States. Prior to that he spent 12 years in Nortel Networks, a Canadian Telecommunications multinational as Group Vice President for Enterprise Networks Europe, having started his management career in Deloitte and Touche. He served on the Industrial Development Board, Ireland for 10 years retiring in December 2005. Now working as an independent business consultant he is a non executive Board member of Elan plc, Calyx Group plc and the NUI Galway Development Board, as well as several private companies.
Nicholas Pople, Non-Executive Director, aged 37, non-executive director.
Nicholas is Chief Executive of Ludgate Investment and has extensive experience of venture capital and corporate finance. He has advised and raised equity and debt finance for a wide range of small companies both quoted and unquoted. Prior to establishing Ludgate, Nick spent 8 years working within the commercial and investment banking divisions of Barclays Capital (formerly BZW), focused on project and corporate finance.
Audit and risk committee
This committee will receive and review reports on the financial management of the Group and the assessment of operational risks. To the extent practicable, given the size and development of the Group, the recommendations of the Higgs Report will be complied with. The members of this committee are Gerard Hunt and John Gunn (Chairman). Submissions to the committee will be from management and the Group's auditors to whom the committee will have unrestricted access.
Remuneration and nominations committee
This committee will consider the remuneration of the executive directors together with the terms of their service contracts. The members of this committee are John Gunn (Chairman) and Rodger Sargent. The committee will then make recommendations to the Board regarding remuneration. In addition the committee will consider nominations for new executive directors and make recommendations to the Board accordingly. Finally, the committee will approve the issue of share options under the schemes operated by the Group.
