Michael Kennedy, Partner and Head of Employment Law, ByrneWallace LLP

Michael Kennedy is the Head of the Employment Team in ByrneWallace LLP. He has specialised in employment law for nearly 35 years and is consistently ranked as one of Ireland’s top employment lawyers. When Law Awards were introduced in Ireland in 2012, Michael was named as Ireland’s first Employment Lawyer of the Year. He was Chairperson of the Law Society’s Employment and Equality Committee from 2010 to 2012.

Michelle Ní Longáin, Partner and Head of Public Sector, ByrneWallace LLP

Michelle Ní Longáin has extensive experience in employment, equality and administrative law. As well as being one of Ireland’s leading employment-law practitioners, she has also practiced in Northern Ireland, England and Wales. Michelle advises public and private sector clients, primarily employers, on complex areas of employment, equality and administrative law. As well as being head of ByrneWallace LLP’s Public Sector Group and its Compliance Partner, Michelle is a member of Council of the Law Society of Ireland is currently the elected Senior Vice President. She is the chairperson of the Law Society’s Task Force on Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Rhona Murphy, Consultant, Employment Law ByrneWallace LLP

Rhona Murphy is a Consultant in the ByrneWallace LLP Employment Law Team, with over 20 years’ experience working in employment law. Before joining ByrneWallace LLP, Rhona was Head of Employment Law Services at Ibec from 2007 to 2020. In this role, she was involved in advising and making representations on significant Irish legislative initiatives over many years. From 2008-2020, Rhona was a member of Business Europe’s Industrial Relations Working Group. Rhona also appeared before Ireland’s Joint Oireachtas (Parliament) Committees on matters associated with regulation of the employment relationship, most recently in relation to false self-employment and the reform and consolidation of employment permits legislation.  She was a member of the Business and Human Rights Implementation Group, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2019-2020. She was Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Law at the National University of Ireland (NUI Maynooth) from 2014 to 2020.

David Fox, Managing Director, Sodexo

David Fox is Managing Director, Sodexo Ireland and leads a team of 3,700 employees who work across 230 sites, on the island of Ireland. Sodexo is one of Ireland’s leading on-site services providers.

David’s role focuses on evolving the Sodexo Ireland country strategy, incorporating Sodexo’s Vital Spaces approach which empowers workplace transformation by creating agile physical spaces, meaningful employee connections and optimised business performance.

David, who lives in Dublin, joined Sodexo in 2011 and has held several senior management roles within Sodexo, most recently holding the role of European Account Director for P&G.

With over fifteen years’ experience of leading teams in consumer facing, integrated facilities management and contract/project management, in corporate and FMCG manufacturing environments, David possesses a wealth of operational and leadership experience. David is recognised as having a strong focus on process improvement, operations and people management.