CES - Key Persons
Aisling is a member of the CES graduate programme. She joined with an interest in advancing her research skills through meaningful projects, as well as broadening her knowledge of implementation and project management. Her research areas of interest include digitalisation and social media, working conditions and education.
Job Titles:
- Senior Project Specialist
Alison is an experienced researcher and policy analyst who joined CES in 2015 with a desire to support the organisation's aim of connecting research, policy and practice towards the achievement of better outcomes for people. She has worked with individuals and teams in statutory, voluntary and community sector bodies, supporting them through research, evaluation and knowledge and evidence translation activities.
Alison has led projects on a range of issues including dementia, parenting, impact of alcohol, educational support for children in foster care, teachers' professional development and the creation of government strategies for children, young people and families. Alison has a PhD in teacher education from Ulster University and has held a range of parliamentary, academic and government research posts.
Job Titles:
- Senior Project Specialist
- Senior Project Specialist - Implementation
Andy is a senior project specialist in the Centre for Effective Services (CES), where he works on implementation, practice and service development. Andy joined CES with a vison to improve the use of implementation practice to improve outcomes across a range of service areas. With a background in youth justice, Andy has worked in both statutory and voluntary sector organisations where he was involved with service management and service/practice development.
Whilst with CES, Andy has worked with HIQA, Respond and the Irish Prison Service to build capacity in implementation aswell as design new services. Andy has a BSc in Social Sciences and Social Policy, an MSc in Restorative Practice and is in the last year of a PhD in criminology.
Job Titles:
- Senior Project Specialist
Anne has twenty-five years' experience in research and evaluation of public policy, projects and programmes across many domains. These include health and wellbeing, community development, early years, youth, family support, justice, education and training. Anne joined CES to become part of the vibrant multi skilled team working together to ensure better services for people in Ireland.
Anne's areas of experience include, applied research, evaluation, design and facilitation of bespoke workshops to support reflective practice and organisational development.
Anne is a chartered member of the British Psychological Society. She holds a BA (Hons) degree in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin, a BSc in Integrated Counselling and Psychotherapy and MSc in Organisational Psychology from the University of East London.
Brid is an experienced programme management and customer experience professional. Prior to joining CES, Brid's change management and process improvement skills were used to lead teams delivering strategic customer experience and business transformation programmes. She joined CES with an interest in applying her passion for learning and creative problem solving to deliver person centred public service transformations.
Within CES Brid is a member of the Community Operations Improvement Programme team. This programme involves CES working with the HSE to build and implement change to improve community health services. Brid has worked on a range of projects including supporting the implementation of the Ombudsman "Wasted Lives" report, the development of a Statutory Home Support Scheme and the delivery of the Nursing Home Expert Panel recommendations. Brid has extensive experience within highly regulated environments and is both PMP® and CCXP® certified.
Job Titles:
- Graphic Designer
- Member of the Knowledge and Communications Team
Bronwyn joined CES because she believes that design has an important role to play in improving services for the people who use them. Through visual clarity, user experience and simplicity, her work aims to make things easier and more accessible for practitioners and policy makers.
Her role involves designing and creating visuals adhering to the CES brand, designing CES and client resources, including the CES website, creating infographics, reports and designing visual tools. She helps project teams with visual identity and branding within their own work.
Bronwyn has worked on projects such as Goal, Reaching out Supporting Families and has worked on projects for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the HSE. She has a degree in Visual Communications and a postgrad in User Experience Design both from IADT, Dun Laoghaire.
Job Titles:
- Project and Business Support
Job Titles:
- Member of the Knowledge and Communications Team
- Knowledge and Communications Lead
Claire is a communications professional with over 25 years' experience working in the voluntary sector. Claire worked for the Alzheimer's Society in Northern Ireland for a number of years, and then spent almost 20 years at RNID where she held a range of senior roles in Northern Ireland and across the UK. She also led Community and Voluntary Sector involvement in the Health and Social Care Board's flagship transformation programme through Integrated Care Partnerships.
With a strong interest in disability rights, and in depth experience in advocacy and influencing to bring about social change, Claire has joined CES to help increase awareness of the critical work the organisation does to improve public service impacts for the population.
Daniela is passionate about improving how public services are designed and delivered. She is especially interested in ensuring that the intended service users are at the centre of service design.
Before joining CES, Daniela worked in various roles in the UK health and higher education sectors. The range of projects that she has worked on is wide and includes medical education programmes, software implementation in hospitals, covid-19 testing policy implementation at UCL and the UK Health Security Agency and a mental health change programme at the University of Cambridge.
Daniela holds an Anthropology degree from the University of Exeter and a Masters in Global Health and Development from University College London. She has a keen interest in the study of mental health interventions and has contributed to the development of strategies to support the health of children living in temporary accommodation.
Daniela has a working knowledge of lean project management methodologies and is working towards the APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ).
Job Titles:
- Senior Project Specialist
Dave shares the same passion as CES for developing public sector services, which is what motivated him to join the organisation. He has thirty years of experience working in health, community development, youth justice and early intervention & prevention environments. His knowledge of consultancy, programme and operations management has helped him set up many new services in public sector settings, and support local government develop performance management systems for monitoring and evaluation.
Dave is a qualified Youth Worker and certified Project Manager, with a Post-Graduate Certificate in Programme and Change Management from Lancaster University. He is currently working with the Health Service Executive to implement the Department of Health's ten-year mental health policy- Sharing the Vision.
David has over 10 years' experience in the not-for-profit sector, particularly in the fields of international development, education, and monitoring & evaluation. He joined CES with an interest to apply his diverse skills and experience across a wide range of projects. He has expertise in research, evaluation, monitoring, and policy analysis.
David is currently working across a number of projects in the areas of family services, youth, and early childhood care and education. He holds Masters degrees from the Universities of Galway and Edinburgh and is in the final stages of a PhD in education and lifelong learning in University College Dublin.
David's PhD research was undertaken in partnership with Plan International Ireland, adopting a case study approach to understand how policy concepts in international education are translated into education programming. He has previously worked on education technology projects in a number of African countries; a multi-country education programme in West Africa; rural development and water and sanitation projects in Uganda; human rights and anti-corruption projects in Ghana; a schools technology project in Ireland; and a youth worker training project in Ireland.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Senior Management Team
- Director, Implementation and Practice
- Implementation and Practice Director
Dr David Kryl is the Implementation and Practice Director at CES, leading our team of Implementation experts and overseeing the delivery of implementation support to both internal and external projects. David believes that pragmatic and robust implementation can improve public service outcomes and are key to making a positive impact on the lives of people across Ireland and Northern Ireland.
David's career has revolved around strategy, performance and implementation in complex environments. Before joining CES, David held a dual role as Insight Director at Health Innovation Wessex and Implementation Lead at ARC Wessex, preceded by senior positions at the National Institute for Health Research (England) and RAND Europe. He has also contributed to building science capacity in developing countries both in the private sector, through a biotech start-up, and the United Nations.
Aoife is a Project Specialist at CES working primarily in research and evaluation. She joined CES with a passion for improving public services and the quality of evidence used to develop them. Aoife has worked on a range of national evaluations to date, including of the Better Start Quality Development Service (QDS) and the pilot implementation of the Community Healthcare Network model (CHN).
Aoife holds a PhD and MSc in Psychology from Maynooth University. She is also a Fulbright scholar and completed her fellowship at the Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University (US). Prior to joining CES, she worked in research and project management in the non-profit sector, in areas such as women's rights, early years, and public health.
Caroline is a Project Specialist working in research and evaluation. She has more than 14 years' experience working in education and health-related research across a range of academic and applied settings. She joined CES with a view to contributing to evaluation of public services in education and health. Her previous experience has focused largely on children and young people and their parents.
Caroline holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Maynooth University and a B.A. (Hons) in Psychology from University College Dublin. Prior to joining CES, she contributed to the development of an evaluation framework for teachers' professional learning at the Educational Research Centre; completed a post-doctoral position at Dublin City University focused on parent-adolescent communication and negotiation of self-management responsibilities for adolescent type 1 diabetes; completed a post-doctoral position at University College Dublin in the area of youth mental health; and worked on the evaluation of the Preparing for Life parenting programme.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Senior Management Team
As Chief Executive Officer, Inez is responsible for leading the CES team and implementing the organisations strategy in line with the vision and leadership of the Board.
Before joining CES, Inez was the Chief Executive of the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA), a role she held for more than 20 years. NALA is an independent charity committed to making sure people with literacy, numeracy and basic digital skills needs can fully take part in society and have access to learning opportunities. Inez served on the inaugural Healthy Ireland Council and is a former member of the Government's Expert Group on Future Skills Needs which advises the Government on skills needs and labour market issues that impact enterprise and employment growth. She has served as Chair and Board member of a range of charity and statutory bodies.
Inez is a graduate of the University of Sheffield (EdD) and Maynooth University (BA, MA, Dip).
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chairman of the Board
- Chartered Engineer
Dr. Jack Golden is a Chartered Engineer by background, and has extensive interest and experience in the field of leadership. He was awarded a Ph.D. in International Business Leadership at the Dublin Institute of Technology in 2012.
Jack's experience includes a range of senior roles in manufacturing industries in Ireland and internationally. In Ireland Jack worked for CRH plc for seventeen years as Group HR Director and Organisation Development Director where his primary focus was on talent management and developing the next generation of leaders for the organisation.
He is President of the European Chamber of Commerce in Ireland and was a Council Member of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce from 2004 to 2017. He was a trustee of the Eisenhower Foundation, based in the USA from 2011 to 2015. He is a former member of the Irish government's Expert Group on Future Skills Needs and is a Fellow of The Irish Academy of Engineering and Engineers Ireland.
Dr Jennifer Hanratty is a research psychologist and social innovator with expertise in evaluation and evidence synthesis. She joined CES to be part of its mission to bring evidence into practice to improve lives. Jennifer's expertise lies in bringing together complex research evidence and translating it for practical applied use. She has led projects covering the maternity and postnatal period, breastfeeding, early childhood, family support, children's wellbeing, children's social care, preventing homelessness and determinants of health behaviours. She has acted as senior methodological advisor on evidence synthesis projects for WHO, NIHR, UKRI and the centre of excellence for development impact and learning (CEDIL).
Dr Hanratty has a strong record of funding capture, exceeding 1.5 million to date. She received her PhD in psychology in 2010.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Senior Management Team
- Director, Research Development and Evaluation
Máire brings over 20 years' experience in research management, strategy and development in the higher education sector. She joined CES with a desire to more effectively bring research into public policy and services.
Máire is an expert in research development with a track record in national and European research funding. Prior to joining CES, Máire was Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the Technological University of the Shannon, and Strategy Lead for Research Development at the SFI funded ADAPT Research Centre. She has worked collaboratively with many academic disciplines and partners in universities, industry, government and non-government sectors.
Máire has a BA, MA and PhD in Political Theory from University College Dublin, and was awarded a Research Excellence Award from Trinity College Dublin in 2020.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Chartered Director and Fellow of the Institute of Directors
Dr. Theresa Donaldson joined CES' Board in May 2019. Theresa is a Chartered Director and Fellow of the Institute of Directors. She has held positions as Chief Executive of Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council and Craigavon Borough Council. From 1985 to 2010 Theresa held several positions in health and social care and legal services including: - Director of Policy and Civil Service Delivery in the Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission, Deputy Director of the Northern Ireland Guardian Ad Litem Agency, and Children's Services Manager with the NSPCC.
Theresa held a public appointment as Chair of a Health and Social Services Research Ethics Committee for 6 years and a Judicial Appointment as Lay Member Charity Tribunal.
She also won a research fellowship to the Centre for Childcare Research, where she was awarded a PhD in 2002.
Job Titles:
- Project Support - Corporate Services
Hazel currently works as a Corporate Services Support. In her role Hazel processes monthly payments across the organisation. She manages all staff inductions, annual leave and records in line with Data Protection policy and ensures that all IT systems are up-to-date. Her role involves the day-to-day running of the office and ensuring that the team is adequately resourced.
Hazel has over 20 years of experience working as an Administrator and an Office Manager in the childcare sector.
Jessica is an early career project specialist, whose work primarily focuses on research and evaluation. Jessica joined CES after completing a Master's in Global Criminology, from Utrecht University. She joined CES with the goal of further developing expertise in applied research methods and evaluation. Jessica brings with her to CES an enthusiasm for evidence-based practice and informing service delivery that is reflexive and accountable. Her expertise lies in social research, qualitative research methodologies, literature reviews, thematic data analysis, and evidence synthesis. Her academic areas of interest include penology and convict criminology, gender-based violence, intersectionality and feminist criminology, child protection and child abuse, cultural criminology, and queer studies. Jessica also holds a B.A. International (Hons.) in Sociology and German, and CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults).
Prior to joining CES, Jessica worked for several years in Education as an English Language Teacher (EFL), both in Ireland and internationally, wherein she enhanced skills such as communication, relationship building, presentation and intercultural competency. Jessica is currently undertaking projects with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Tusla-the Child and Family Agency, and the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
Karl is a Project Specialist and his work primarily focuses on research and evaluation. Karl initially joined CES through the Centre's Graduate Intern programme, before becoming a full-time Project Specialist. He currently works across several projects, including evaluations of Local Community Safety Partnerships and Better Start National Early Years Quality Development Service. Karl has a particular interest in research methods, evidence synthesis approaches, and using research to inform policy and practice.
Karl currently holds a Bachelor Degree in Social Science, a Diploma in Community Drug and Alcohol Work, and a Masters Degree in Criminology. Prior to joining CES, Karl did a number of internships related to prison policy and healthcare. He was also a social care worker for several years, working for two homelessness organisations with children in residential and emergency state care.
In her role within CES, Katrina supports the Dublin team delivering a variety of projects to include research and evaluation and implementation. Katrina joined the organisation because she wants to be part of a team that makes a difference in society by influencing policies and developing research.
Katrina's experience lies within services in the public sector as she worked as an intelligence officer with the west Midlands Police in a civilian capacity. She then worked as an ESL teacher in Thailand before returning to Ireland to work as an administrator for a fostering agency.
Katrina holds a BSc in Language and linguistics from Ulster University and a master's degree in Forensic Linguistics from Aston University in Birmingham.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Senior Management Team
- Director, Change and Improvement
Having worked in Clinical Research and Development within the private sector for over 24 years, Ken joined CES with a desire to use his considerable strategic and operational leadership experience to support improvement in how public services are delivered.
Ken's areas of expertise include programme and change management, operational and systems improvement, stakeholder relationship management and collaborative working.
Ken leads the Community Operations Improvement Programme team where CES works with the HSE to build and implement change to improve community health services. In doing so, Ken has directly supported a number of programmes. Throughout the period of the Covid-19 pandemic response, which necessitated significant innovation and a rapid pace of change in service delivery, Ken worked with the Covid-19 Community Testing and Vaccination Programmes where he supported the initial set-up of these services while leading HSE teams to design, develop and implement a wide range of initiatives to improve accessibility, efficiency and effectiveness of these essential services.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Senior Management Team
- Director, Evidence Informed Policy and Communities
Majella heads up CES's work in Northern Ireland, including its support to government departments, agencies, funding bodies and voluntary and community organisations. She has led the roll out of the Goal Programme for Public Service Reform within Northern Ireland. In 2019, Majella was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship, which will support her to learn about how policy makers have used evidence in divided societies.
Previously Majella held a number of senior roles in the third sector in Northern Ireland, including Chief Executive of CO3, a third sector, leadership organisation and as Director NI of the fuel poverty charity National Energy Action. Majella was appointed by the First and Deputy First Minister to the Compact Civic Engagement Panel and is a Board member of NIACRO. She holds an MSc in Executive Leadership.
Job Titles:
- HR and Governance Administrator
Mariana is part of the Corporate Services team at CES and her role as Human Resources and Governance Administrator spans HR processes and policy as well as supporting effective governance with the Company Secretary and Board. Mariana joined the organisation because she wants to be part of a team that makes a positive impact on society.
Mariana believes that people are the most valuable asset for any organisation and ensuring best practice in HR is a key focus of her work in CES.
Before moving into Human Resources, Mariana worked in Marketing and Communications for more than ten years. She holds a CIPD Diploma in Human Resources Management, a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing and Communications, and a BA in Journalism.
Mark has joined CES having led major national healthcare quality improvement programmes in Ireland and the UK.
Prior to CES he worked at Tusla, managing the roll out of IT case management solutions and ensuring high quality data and analytics were available to drive evidence-informed service delivery. While in the UK, Mark managed the Stroke Programme based at King's College London, which measured the quality and organisation of stroke care in the NHS, developed clinical guidelines and provided peer review services.
Mark is a practitioner in Agile and Prince2 project management. He has a degree in Business and Economics and has post-graduate qualifications in Health Economics, Epidemiology and Public Health.
At CES, Mark will be working within the Community Operations Improvement Programme; in collaboration with the HSE, he will be using his experience to support Mental Health Operations establish a new Office for youth mental health and initiate its service improvement programme.
Having previously managed largescale legal projects, Mark joined CES in order to apply his programme management knowledge as a certified PRINCE 2 practitioner to a more impactful setting; wanting to contribute to the work of the community, voluntary and public sectors.
Whilst previously supporting the Northern Ireland CES team, Mark now works on the Community Operations Improvement Programme in the HSE; using his experience to support improvement in public service delivery. This programme involves CES working with the HSE to build and implement change to improve community health services.
Mark has worked on a range of projects, including the evaluation of The National Lottery's Reaching Out Supporting Families programme, the implementation of an interim model of care for Long COVID, and the implementation of the HSE Mental Health Services Sharing the Vision policy.
Mary is qualified as a researcher and a social worker. She has worked with children and families in health and social care settings, and in disability services. Mary has also worked in research and practice in access and inclusion in education, as a senior researcher in children and young people's participation in decision-making, as a research consultant, and as a HSE researcher.
Mary joined CES with an understanding of the challenges to organisations and practitioners in providing meaningful and effective services to individuals, families, and communities and believes deeply that evidence-informed, reflective, practice and policy development can help address those challenges.
Mary holds a Master of Social Work from University College Cork, an MA Sociology (Applied Social Research) from the University of Limerick, and a Higher Diploma in Data Science & Analytics from Maynooth University.
Job Titles:
- Social Worker
- Project Specialist
Melanie is a social worker who has worked in the statutory and not-for-profit sectors in Scotland and Northern Ireland for over twenty years. She has a keen interest in building the capacity of organisations to implement policies and practices that will support meaningful change for individuals, families and communities. In CES, Melanie helps teams to use evidence together with their own organisational learning to develop their people and practice.
Melanie's expertise includes communicating complex information simply and accessibly, training and group facilitation, organisational problem-solving and supporting service design and the implementation of new policy and practice across different sectors. Her academic studies include social administration & social policy, social work, and child protection practice.
Job Titles:
- Corporate Services Manager
Olivia has over twenty years' experience of public sector policy and project implementation in Ireland. She joined CES with an interest in implementation science and how to best apply its tenets in ways that are accessible, impactful, and useful to policy makers and practitioners. Her expertise includes training and mentoring, organisational risk assessments, stakeholder engagement and implementation planning and evaluation.
Olivia holds a Bachelor of Social Work and a Master's Degree in Social Policy. She is currently pursuing a research doctorate in the field of social policy that seeks to examine how frontline practitioners can influence the policy cycle.
Olivia's experience includes working with organisations such as the Health Service Executive, the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), An Garda Síochána, University College Cork and the Health Information Quality Authority.
Phelim Quinn served as the Chief Executive of The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), Ireland's health and social care regulator and quality improvement agency. Prior to that Phelim held a number of executive director positions within health and social care regulation and commissioning in Northern Ireland and Ireland.
Phelim is a qualified and registered nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council of the UK, holding qualifications in health promotion, adult general, mental health and health visiting. Throughout his 40-year career he worked in many clinical and managerial roles.
Phelim was a founding member of Safeguarding Ireland, a registered charity with the aim of promoting the development of adult safeguarding legislation in Ireland. He is currently a board member of Safeguarding Ireland.
Rafael joined CES as part of the 2023 Graduate Programme. His passion lies in bridging the gap between theory and practice. He is committed to making evidence-based decision-making a common practice in policy and implementation. With a cross-sectoral background, Rafael has worked as an analyst in high government offices within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, served as a consultant for various NGOs, and contributed as a research assistant at the United Nations.