Niamh Brennan is Michael MacCormac Professor of Management at University College Dublin and Founder/Academic Director of the UCD Centre for Corporate Governance. A first-class honours, first-in-class UCD Science (Microbiology and Biochemistry) graduate, Niamh qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG, holds a PhD from the University of Warwick, is a Chartered Director of the Institute of Directors (London), and has an MSc (Business and Executive Coaching).

In recognition of her research, Niamh was elected to the Royal Irish Academy, Ireland’s highest academic honour, the first business school academic to be so recognised. Niamh also received a British Accounting & Finance Association Distinguished Academic Award, was inducted into the Interdisciplinary Accounting Research Hall of Fame and was awarded a Fellowship of the Irish Academy of Management. Niamh was recognised by Stanford University as one of the world’s top 2% of scientists for 2022 and was one of 22 business school faculty honoured by the US Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) in the 2024 Class of Influential Leaders

Niamh lectures at undergraduate, postgraduate and executive-education levels. In a survey of alumni, Niamh was voted one of UCD’s top three lecturers for the 2000s onwards.

Former chair of the National College of Art & Design and of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, she holds/has held non-executive directorships with the Children’s Hospital Ireland, the Health Service Executive, Ulster Bank, Co-operation Ireland, Coillte (State forestry company), Lifetime Assurance (Bank of Ireland’s life assurance subsidiary) and several private companies, and is/was a member of numerous audit committees. She chaired the Irish Government’s Commission on Financial Management and Control Systems in the Health Services and was Vice-Chair of the Irish Government’s Review Group on Auditing.

Niamh is an Inaugural Honorary Fellow of The Institute of Directors in Ireland and an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland.