Join industry leaders and winners as Irish finance is celebrated on a global stage at the IrishCentral Finance Awards 2026. The event on March 5 will combine awards, short remarks from judges, and high-value networking, bringing together senior executives and rising stars.
The winners of the IrishCentral Finance Awards 2026 represent a cross-section of the creme de la creme of the financial ecosystem, from venture capital and academia to banking and client services. The roster reflects both long careers and rising talent.
This awards program recognizes exceptional achievement across eight categories and is designed to put winners and attendees in a room where deals are discussed and relationships are forged.
The inaugural IrishCentral Finance Awards 2026 will take place at the American Irish Historical Society, in New York City on the evening of March 5th. Tickets are available now with professional and corporate leader packages. Reserve your place today to be part of the ceremony and networking reception.
We thank the judging panel for their time, expertise and careful assessment. The judges were Maria Hehir, Principal at Blackstone; Brian C. Smith, Co-Founder and COO at Bayberry Capital Partners; Robert Cleere, Director at PwC Deals Advisory; Sean Gaffey, SVP at Merrill Lynch Wealth Group; Seán O’Dowd, Managing Director at Silvercrest Asset Management; and Sinead Colton Grant, Chief Investment Officer at BNY Wealth.
For more information about the categories, ticketing and the event program visit the official event page. Reserve your ticket now and make sure your company and contacts are part of the conversation when winners are celebrated.
The winners of the IrishCentral Financial Awards 2026 are:
Contribution to Irish Venture Capital - Alan Merriman, Co-Founder, Elkstone
Honoring significant contributions to the Irish startup and venture ecosystem.
Alan Merriman is a seasoned financial services executive and investor with over 25 years of experience.
In 2011, Alan founded Elkstone, Ireland's alternatives investment specialist, building Ireland's largest early-stage venture business with over 70 portfolio companies that have generated over one billion Euro in follow-on funding.
Known for identifying exceptional founders at the earliest stages, he led seed investments in notable Irish successes, including Soapbox, LetsGetChecked, Flipdish, and Manna. He serves as a board director for several emerging Irish stars, including Protex.ai and BareSpace.
A graduate of University College Dublin, he began his career in finance and became a partner at PwC before serving as CFO of EBS Building Society.
Alan has been a strong advocate for the Irish venture ecosystem and has successfully lobbied for legislative change to attract more private capital to support Irish companies scaling internationally.
Irish American Venture Company of the Year - AI One
Celebrating the most impactful Irish American venture capital firm.
Co-Founder of AI One, Conor Twomey.
AI One makes software that helps large companies use AI across their business. The company was founded by Conor Twomey and Fergus Keenan and is headquartered in New York.
The challenge most of them face is that their data lives in hundreds of different systems that don't connect to each other — and the same information often looks different in each one.
Co-Founder of AI One, Fergus Keenan.
AI One plugs into those systems as they are, resolves conflicts, and ensures the right people have access to the right data. Everything runs inside the company's own environment — no data goes anywhere.
Solving the data problem is just the start. As companies scale AI usage, a new set of challenges appears — getting accurate results, keeping things reliable, and managing the cost of running AI models across more and more use cases. AI One is helping some of the world's largest organisations work through exactly this.
Banking Leader - Sean Murray
Celebrating outstanding leadership in the banking sector.
Sean Murray, Chief Product & Digital Officer at Barclays US Consumer Bank.
Sean Murray is the Chief Product & Digital Officer at Barclays US Consumer Bank, responsible for driving new products, card platform modernization, and digital customer experiences. He also manages the business prioritization and planning process for the US consumer bank with operations and technology teams in an agile environment. The Product Office is focused on enhancing product innovation and delivering new products to market with efficiency, quality and speed.
To foster innovation within the US Consumer Bank and deliver next-generation digitized financial solutions, the Product Office launched the Innovation Lab (iLab) in 2022. The iLab enables Barclays to map customer journeys for partners, elevate customer experience and digital capabilities, and identify key priorities on our roadmap.
Sean has served as Chief Product Officer since the group was formed in April of 2020 and is a member of the Barclays Bank Delaware (BBDE) Executive Committee. He is also a mentor for Unreasonable Impact, a Colorado-based, international company that supports a Fellowship for growth-stage entrepreneurs, channels exclusive deal-flow to investors, and partners with institutions to discover profit in solving global problems.
Prior to joining Barclays, Sean served as the Citi Fintech Chief Product Officer from 2015 to 2019. He held various roles at JPMorgan Chase within its consumer division, including the Card Services, Retail Banking, and Mobile, E-Commerce, and Payments groups, from 1999 to 2014.
Excellence in Client Services - Angus Miller
Honoring those who go above and beyond for their clients.
Angus Miller, Wealth Management Advisor, Merrill Lynch.
Angus Miller has over 27 years of experience as a Wealth Management Advisor, joining Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in 2025 from UBS. Angus and his team deliver sophisticated wealth management strategies to entrepreneurs, senior corporate executives, and Non-Profit Organizations on a global basis.
Angus' responsibilities include institutional consulting for large organizations, liability management, financial and estate planning, customizing portfolio strategies, concentrated stock diversification and hedging solutions, and consulting on philanthropic strategies for Endowments and Foundations.
Angus is a member of The Investment Wealth Institute (formerly IMCA) and the Ireland US Council for Commerce and Industry. He is a Board Member at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey (RWJBarnabas Health). He is actively involved in charity with Freedom House and The Ireland Funds.
Contribution to Irish Finance Academia Award - Professor Andrew Bukrke
Recognizing outstanding contributions to financial education and research.
Professor Andrew Burke, Chair of Business Studies at Trinity College Dublin
Professor Andrew Burke is the Chair of Business Studies at Trinity College Dublin.
He served two terms as Dean from 2015 to 2023 and during this time Trinity Business School tripled in size, secured Triple Accreditation (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS) placing the School in the top 1% of business schools in the world, built and self-financed a new €80 million eco-friendly building, moved into the top tier of Financial Times rankings as well as securing Athena Swan accreditation and was ranked in the top four business schools in the world by the Economist for gender diversity.
Through extensive participation across the School's wider community, he has overseen two strategic visions, encompassing an internationalisation strategy in 2016 and, most recently, the Transforming Business for Good Strategy: Strategy Horizon 2030. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and has served on the Board of the University and Audit Committee. He has also served on the Governing Body of UCD.
He was Bettany Chair and the Founding Director of the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship at Cranfield School of Management. He has held faculty positions at the universities of Warwick, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Balliol College Oxford and visiting professorships at UCLA and the Max Planck Institute of Economics.
Rising Star - Harry Donnelly
For early-career professionals under 40 making waves.
Harry Donnelly, CEO and Founder of Circuit.
Harry is the CEO and Founder of Circuit. He holds a Master's in Financial Engineering from MIT, where he focused his research on digital assets, and previously worked at JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. A former Irish underage rugby international, he left trading convinced that crypto would transform global markets and determined to help make it happen.
Circuit Security operates an institutional digital-asset recovery engine called Automatic Asset Extraction (AAE) that uses pre-authorized, pre-signed transaction flows to automatically sweep funds into client-approved backup vaults when wallets, keys, or signing infrastructure fail.
Dealmaker of the Year - Darragh O Flaherty
Honoring the architect of the year's most significant transaction.
Darragh O’Flaherty, Managing Director at Blue Owl Capital.
Darragh O’Flaherty is a Managing Director at Blue Owl Capital, where he focuses on technology investing and, in addition, oversees the firm’s investing in healthcare IT.
He works across the capital structure, providing financing solutions spanning private credit, growth equity, and late-stage venture, and works with sponsors and management teams on financings and other transactions, drawing on deep sector knowledge and a practical, execution focused approach.
Before joining Blue Owl in 2017, Darragh focused on technology investments at Guggenheim Partners, and previously worked at Allied Irish Banks in New York. Earlier in his career, he founded Medibill, i.e., building software to automate medical billing for physicians in Ireland.
Darragh is active in the Irish American finance community. He serves on the board and Investment Committee of the University of Galway Foundation and is a founding member and Investment Committee member of the Digital Irish Venture Fund.
