Business Movers 

New roles: (top row, left to right) Maurice Minogue, Elaine Birchall, Neal Cummins; (bottom row) Sonia Lashand Sedler, Mark O'Sullivan, Dr Jakob Kümmel.

Here is a selection of people starting new roles with CHK, CBI Northern Ireland, FleishmanHillard, Keywords Studios, BDO and Neuromod Devices.

Maurice Minogue has joined the CHK Partnership as a partner with CHK, the Cork-based accountancy firms. He is a commerce graduate of UCC, a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a Chartered Tax advisor and holds an advanced diploma in international tax. Maurice has extensive experience, having worked previously with Ernst & Young, advising both domestic and international clients, across a broad range of industry sectors. He will bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the CHK Partnership, with a particular emphasis on tax, at both a personal and corporate level. This will allow CHK Partnership provide more value to its clients and to develop its service offering for both its personal and corporate clients.

Elaine Birchall, head of Belfast-based food company SHS Group, has been appointed as vice-chair for 2021 with CBI Northern Ireland, the NI business represetative body. She succeeds Trevor Lockhart, CEO of Fane Valley. She will work with Adrian Doran, CBI NI chair and Barclays head of corporate banking. Elaine, who is originally from Co Kildare, has led family-owned SHS Group since 2015 and is a long-standing CBI member. The SHS Group employs over 1,100 people in commercial offices and production sites in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain, with household brands including WKD, Shloer, Maguire & Patterson matches, Zip firelighters and Meridian nut butters. She previously held senior roles for Colgate Palmolive and PZ Cussons.

Neal Cummins has been appointed to the board of communications company FleishmanHillard Ireland (FH). He is a senior consultant on the agency’s brand marketing team and head of FH Sport. With over 13 years’ experience in communications and media, he has worked with leading brands in the FMCG, technology, financial, media, agriculture and legal sectors, notably managing sponsorships including Cadbury’s partnership with Premier League club side and SuperValu’s GAA Football sponsorship. He also advised on Aviva’s IRFU and FAI partnerships and naming rights of the Aviva Stadium. He joins from UTV Ireland, where he was head of communications for UTV Ireland where he was responsible for the launch of the channel, the rollout of home-grown and acquired programming, managing on-screen talent as well as issues management and public affairs engagement.

Sonia Lashand Sedler has been appointed as group chief operating officer with Keywords Studios in Dublin, a services provider to the global video games industry. She will lead day-to-day operational running of the business. She brings 20 years of experience in scaling up businesses internationally in senior roles, notably with global retail and banking technology firm Diebold Nixdorf, and with digital transformation company Sutherland Global Services, where she was managing director for the EMEA region and led the transformation of customer journeys for a number of blue chip businesses. Her previous leadership roles with digital transformation organisations also include HCL, where she acted as VP European Banking, and Accenture, where she acted as a managing director.

Mark O’Sullivan has been appointed as R&D partner with BDO, the audit, tax, advisory and consultancy firm. He specialises in securing R&D funding for companies through government grants and tax incentives. He will lead BDO Ireland’s R&D Incentives practice, which combines engineering and scientific experts with taxation professionals. He is a member of Engineers Ireland and holds professional qualifications in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing & Design Engineering, Medical Physics and Computing. He is also a qualified Chartered Tax Advisor and has a significant amount of Revenue audit experience. Since joining BDO, he has been involved in the successful qualification of over €500 million of expenditure for R&D tax credits and grant funding and has been involved in many of the largest R&D tax credit claims ever made in Ireland.

Dr Jakob Kümmel has been appointed as clinical affairs manager with Neuromod Devices Ltd, the Irish medical technology company specialising in non-invasive neuromodulation technologies. Based in Neuromod’s office in Forchheim, Germany, he will deliver clinical training and education programmes for its Lenire tinnitus treatment system, which improved tinnitus symptoms in 86.2% of treatment-compliant participants in a recent 12-week clinical trial. He will also manage Neuromod’s partner network across multiple European jurisdictions. He joins from robotic rehab technology company Hocoma AG in Swizerland, where he led training, education and clinical affairs. Before that he was Scientific and Research Advisor at the Human Performance Research Center at Germany’s University Konstanz, where he graduated with a Doctorate, a MSc and Bachelor in Sports Science degrees.