Here are this week's six business movers

Frits Potgieter has been appointed as general manager of the 5-star Muckross Park Hotel & Spa in Killarney, part of the iNua Collection.

He brings 20 years’ experience, having started out in a variety of roles with luxury UK properties, including the 4-star Brands Hatch Thistle Hotel, the Radisson Edwardian Hotels group, the Chesterfield Mayfair Hotel and the Milestone Hotel & Apartments, London. In 2012, he joined The Doyle Collection as hotel manager at The Marylebone Hotel, and then became GM of The Kensington Hotel. He moved to Ireland in 2016 as GM of the Imperial Hotel in Cork. Born in Namibia, he grew up in South Africa. He holds a BComm and a degree in Strategic Management from University of Johannesburg.

Kieran Murphy has been appointed to serve on the first ever statutory advisory committee in Ireland to support monitoring of Ireland’s implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

Originally from Cork, he is currently the quality and risk manager in the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital. He also lectures in Law on the Diploma in Disability Studies in UCC. He is a registered nurse in intellectual disability and his qualifications include law, quality in healthcare and a masters degree in social policy. Eleven members, mostly people with disabilities, have been appointed to the committee by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. The committee will monitor Ireland’s implementation of the UN Convention; it held its first formal meeting this week. It has a mandate to hold the State to account on the rights of people with disabilities.

Mandy Gabriel has been appointed as sales and marketing manager for the Imperial Hotel, Cork, a member of the Flynn Hotels group.

She has worked in hospitality for the past 15 years, notably in sales and marketing roles with Kinsale Hotel and Spa, Rochestown Park Hotel, Clifden Station House and The Gleneagle Group, including The Brehon, INEC and The Gleneagle. Mandy holds a degree in Business Science and Marketing from UL. The Imperial Hotel invested €400,000 in refurbishment upgrades in 2018. Other Flynn Hotels properties include the Old Ground, Ennis; Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny; and The Park Hotel, Dungarvan.

John O’Neill has been appointed as senior manager at BSI’s Cybersecurity and Information Resilience centre in Sandyford, Dublin.

He will lead cybersecurity and information resilience projects, business development and thought leadership. He brings 14 years’ experience in environmental management, tech, internet service delivery and software development. He joins from Retail in Motion, where he was head of technical operations. A graduate of IT Tallaght, he holds a BSc in IT Management as well as CISSP, CISA and ITIL certifications. His cybersecurity experience includes PCI DSS, ISO/IEC 27001, risk assessment, data protection and compliance.

Chris Upton has been appointed as CEO of advertising agency Havas Dublin. He replaces Bob Coggins, who is to pursue other opportunities after five years heading up the agency.

Upton has also worked in advertising with Des O’Meara & Partners and McConnells. A co-founder and shareholder of Boys + Girls, he left the agency in 2018 to do an MBA at UCD Smurfit Business School. He currently chairs The Marketing Society. Over the past two decades, his clients have included Ulster Bank, Barnardos, Britvic, BMW/MINI, Danone, Dulux, Tesco, Unilever, AIB, C&C and Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard. In his spare time, he lectures at Dublin’s School of Marketing.

Prof Marco Colonna, MD, has been appointed to the scientific advisory board of Inflazome, which develops orally available drugs to address unmet needs in inflammatory diseases.

His team discovered Triggering Receptors Expressed on Myeloid cells (TREM), key regulators of the innate immune response. He is investigating TREM’s link to Alzheimer’s Disease at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, where he is Professor of Pathology and Immunology. Born in Parma, Italy, he has published over 80 studies in peer-reviewed journals. Inflazome is preparing to advance its lead product candidates into clinical studies later this year.