Fintan Swanton has been Senior Consultant and Managing Director with Cygnus Consulting Ltd since 2006. Fintan was the founding Chairman of the Association of Data Protection Officers, and is a Fellow & past President of the Irish Computer Society.

Past employers include The Sunday Business Post, AIB, and Prudential Europe. He has many years experience in ICT.

Fintan holds a Master of Laws (LLM) Degree, specialising in European Data Protection law and Corporate Social Responsibility, as well as a Master of Science (MSc) Degree in Computing for Commerce and Industry.

He is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered IT Professional, Certified Data Protection Officer, Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer, Certified Information Systems Auditor, and Certified Information Security Manager.

Fintan collaborates with the Association of Data Protection Officers and the Irish Computer Society, developing, updating,  and presenting their data protection training programmes.

In 2017 he was appointed to the European Commission Multistakeholder Expert Group to support the application of the GDPR. As a group member, Fintan provided professional opinions and feedback to the Commission on how the GDPR should be applied in practice.

Dr Deirdre Garvey is a management consultant with Cygnus Consulting Ltd. She has held senior management positions in education and industry, most recently as Head of Centre and  Senior Lecturer at the Atlantic Technological University (ATU), Mayo Campus.

Before joining ATU, Deirdre was a Senior Specialist in strategic management with the Irish Management Institute (IMI) and is currently a member of the IMI Associate faculty. She is also experienced in enterprise development and business mentoring.

Deirdre was Chair of the Western Development Commission (WDC) and Chair of the Fund Advisory Panel (FAP) from 2017 to 2020, and was previously a board member of the WDC and FAP from 2014 to 2017. She was appointed to the board of WestBIC in 2020.

She has extensive experience at senior management level with multinational technology companies including Microsoft EPDC, Lionbridge Technologies, and Stream International.

Deirdre holds a PhD in Business Studies from TCD, an MBS Degree in International Business from UCD’s Smurfit Business School, and a BA (Mgmt) from the IMI. She is a Certified Sustainability Professional with Global Reporting International (GRI).