About Dr.Shirley Kavanagh
I am Dr Shirley Kavanagh, Executive Advisor, Coach, and Adjunct Teaching Fellow at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin.
I work with C-suite leaders and senior teams who need to gain clarity, align fast, and deliver results that matter. Through executive coaching and mentoring, senior team facilitation, and strategic consultancy, I support and challenge leaders to elevate their capability and increase their impact, at both individual and organisational level.
Background & Career
Over three decades I have held senior leadership positions across some of the world's most demanding organisations — INIZIO, AXA, Primark, and the Central Bank of Ireland. Spanning, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, financial services, retail, and the public sector, each sector has taught me something different about what leadership actually requires when the stakes are high and the answers are not obvious. That breadth of experience, gives me a perspective that purely linear career paths do not. I understand commercial pressures, cultural complexity, and the very human challenges that sit at the heart of every leadership problem.
I believe great leadership practice should be grounded in rigorous thinking. My academic credentials reflect that commitment. I hold a PhD in Strategic Leadership and HRM from Trinity College Dublin, an MSc in Management Science from the University of Leicester, and a Diploma in Corporate Governance from Glasgow Caledonian University. I am an alumna of IMD Lausanne, the University of Michigan, and Harvard University, and a recipient of the Academy of Management Best Paper Award. As an Adjunct Teaching Fellow at Trinity Business School, I teach on the MSc HRM and Trinity MBA programmes, keeping me close to the research frontier and the next generation of leaders.
Leadership, for me, has always been about more than performance. It is about responsibility. I serve as Independent Chair on Senior Public Appointments in the Irish Public Service, a role that reflects my commitment to integrity, fairness, and the quality of leadership in public life.
Commitments to UN Sustainable Goals
I am committed to doing business in a way that gives back. 2% of all fee income is donated to charities who work to support the environment, the arts and support human rights.
I offset carbon of all necessary air travel that is necessary and I provide pro-bono youth education as part of my ongoing commitment to developing the leaders of tomorrow.