Colm Lyon - Founder and Managing Director

Colm is the founder and CEO of Realex Payments (www.realexpayments.com). Since starting Realex Payments in 2000, Colm has led the business to its current position as a one of Europe’s largest and most successful online payments business. Realex Payments processes payments for businesses selling online – among its 11,500 clients are some of the world’s leading international brands – Virgin Atlantic, AA, Vodafone, Motor Tax, Aer Lingus, notonthehighstreet.com, Paddy Power. Its clients are located across 30 countries. The business has over 110 staff in three offices (Dublin, London and Paris), turns over €9m euro per annum and processes in excess of €20bn in payments annually. In early 2012 the company announced a major managed services contract with HSBC Merchant Services.

In 2009, Colm started a new payments business – carapay (www.carapay.com), with an ambition to be a major payment business operating in the clearing systems. The company is one of the first businesses to be awarded a licence under the Payment Service Directive (PSD) and it plans is to make consumer and business payment accounts accessible, mobile, more secure and less expensive.

Colm has worked in financial services related businesses for over twenty five years, starting with fourteen years in the banking sector. He is a regular speaker at payments and internet industry events across Europe and frequently commentates for press as a payments and internet industry expert and visionary about the future of money.

Colm is passionate about business, start-ups and in particular internet businesses. In 2009 he founded the “Internet Growth Alliance”, a business led initiative to support the international growth ambitions of Irish Internet businesses. This led to the creation of the highly acclaimed Enterprise Ireland iGAP development. In addition Colm is a regular committee participant on the Enterprise Ireland Competitive Start Up Fund.

Over the past decade, Colm has received numerous accolades acknowledging his contribution to the internet industry including:

• December 2011 – awarded the Software Industry Person of the Year award at a gala ceremony and dinner, hosted by the Irish Software Association;
• In November 2011 – awarded the ‘Business Person of the month’ accolade from Business & Finance Magazine for his work with Realex Payments and a recent announcement to create an additional 50 jobs;
• In September 2011 - received the prestigious Ruban d’Honneur in round two of the European Business Awards which promote excellence, best practice and innovation in the European business community. Represented Ireland at the finals in Barcelona.
• In 2009 – acclaimed as the "Internet Hero" at the Eircom Golden Spiders Awards for his contribution to the Irish Internet Industry.
• In 2007 - Colm was awarded lifetime membership to the Irish Internet Association in recognition of his contribution as Chairman of the association for four years;
• In 2005 Colm was acclaimed and awarded for his leadership and entrepreneurial spirit when he was finalist of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Award.

Colm is a graduate of University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Management Science Degree. Over the past few years he has spent further time in Harvard and Stanford Business School with the Leadership 4 Growth programme.

You can find and connect with Colm on Twitter @colmlyon and www.twitter.com/colmlyon. Hes on Linkedin at http://ie.linkedin.com/in/colmlyon and on Facebook www.facebook.com/colmlyon.

Dr Laurence Crowley - Chairman of Realex Payments

Dr Laurence Crowley was educated at Belvedere College and University College Dublin, where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce Degree. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant and became a partner in what is now KPMG, specialising in insolvency.

He subsequently became founding executive chairman of the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business at UCD as well as a Director of Rothmans International plc and a director and subsequently governor of Bank of Ireland - a position he held up until 2005.

Dr Crowley is currently Director of:

• Aer Lingus
• Bord Gais Eireann
• Ecocem Materials Limited
• Edwards MacLiammoir Dublin Gate Theatre Productions Limited
• Gaisce – The President’s Award
• O’Flaherty Holdings Limited
• The Economic and Social Research Institute
• US-Ireland Alliance Limited

Dr Crowley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the National University of Ireland.

 

Dr John Mooney - Director

Dr. John Mooney is Associate Professor of Information Systems and Technology Management at the Graziadio School of Business and Management, Pepperdine University, and Research Affiliate at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research, where he was a Visiting Scholar for the 2010-2011 academic year. From 2005-2010, he served as Associate Dean for Academic Programs at the Graziadio School, during which time his responsibilities included leadership and oversight of the development and delivery of the Graziadio School’s portfolio of degree and certificate programs. He serves as a founding Non-Executive Director of Realex Payments and is an active member of the editorial boards of MISQ Executive, the eService Journal, the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and the Journal of Global Responsibility. Dr. Mooney’s current research interests include cloud computing, IT-enabled business innovation, and business executive responsibilities for IT management.

Dr. Mooney holds a BS in Computer Science and a Master in Management Science both from University College Dublin, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from UC Irvine. He served as Co-Chair for the "Strategy, Organization Theory and IS" track of the 2011 International Conference on IS. He was a co-founder of the AACSB Associate Deans Affinity Group, and served as its Co-Chair from 2008-2010, and as Vice-President of Chapters and Affiliated Organizations for the Association for Information Systems from 2004-2007. He consults to senior management on IT-enabled innovation, information management, and IT management, has been honored with a number of teaching, research and service awards.

Gary Conroy - Director

Paul Davey - Director