Governance Ireland 2024 – Sustainability at the heart of governance

8:30

9:25

9:30

Keynote address

Speaker: 
Dr. Colin Hunt, Chief Executive Officer, Allied Irish Bank

9:55

Sustainability: Overseeing a Successful Transition

Aedín O’Leary will moderate a panel of three speakers who will share their experiences and perspectives to date from navigating the sustainability landscape in their respective organisations. They will discuss key drivers behind their journeys, explain why sustainability has become a “must do” (rather than just a “should do”), highlight important enablers including finance, and suggest what good looks like in terms of governing sustainably.

Speakers:
Ann Shiels, Founder, FinLexSus
John MacNamara, Head of Corporate Sustainability, Bord na Móna
Iseult Ward, Co-founder and CEO, FoodCloud

10:40

2.  Register of Beneficial Ownership

The RBO has been a hot topic for many corporate governance professionals since its introduction.

Elaine Nolan will discuss key updates from the RBO including a look at some of the statistics and a summary of the enforcement action taken by the RBO to date.

Paul Egan will provide an overview of the November 2022 Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling which resulted in a closedown of public access to the Central Registers of Beneficial Ownership in EU member states. The CJEU ruled that disclosure to the general public of the identity of a company’s beneficial owner was an unjustified interference with the owner’s fundamental rights, under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Paul will explore the consequences of this ruling for designated persons, such as lawyers, accountants, chartered secretaries and others, who continue to enjoy access to the Registers.

      Elaine Nolan, Assistant Registrar, The Register of Beneficial Ownership
      Paul Egan SC, Of Counsel, Mason Hayes & Curran LLP

 ~

11:10

11:30

Companies Registration Office

Speakers:
Maureen O’Sullivan, Registrar, Companies Registration Office
David McFadden,  Legal Advisor, Companies Registration Office

Moderator:
Jillian O'Sullivan, Partner - Corporate Compliance, Grant Thornton

12:15

Navigating AI in 2024: Confabulations, Confidentiality and Inference when using LLMs - a Governance perspective

Drew will delve into the fascinating world of Legal Language Models (LLMs). He will explore the intriguing phenomena of LLM hallucinations and confabulations, and discuss real-life cases that have made headlines due to the inappropriate or naive usage of LLMs in a legal context. The talk will shed light on the key risks associated with LLMs, and the techniques that are available to manage these. The second part of the talk will take a deep dive into the concept of ‘inference’, and how a better understanding of it can help some people overcome resistance to using LLMs. This talk is designed to equip professionals with the vocabulary and the knowledge to navigate the evolving landscape of LLMs, supporting safe and effective usage.

         Speaker:

         Drew Winlaw, Partner & Global Large Language Model “LLM” Lead, Simmons &                   Simmons LLP

13:00

Networking lunch

14:00

Mapping your Company Secretary career

Speakers:
Helen Pendergast Head of Board & Executive Risk Governance, Bank of Ireland
Anthony Irvine Corporate Governance and Compliance Officer at FD Technologies PLC and president of CGI NI Branch
Sarah Colfer Director, Corporate Secretarial Services at Mazars

Moderator:
Andrew Cooney Recruitment Consultant, Robert Walters

14:35

SEAR Panel

Accountability has been a hot topic for international regulators for many years including within the Central Bank of Ireland. The introduction of a 'Senior Executive Accountability Regime' ('SEAR') in Ireland is a significant step in that development. Cara will facilitate a panel discussion on changes taking place with regard to individual accountability for those working in Financial Services, and the possible future consequences. Our panellists will share insights on implementation of conduct standards, key challenges and considerations for the coming months in advance of the 1 July 2024 SEAR implementation date

Speakers:

15:20

15:40

Speaker: Jennifer Sundberg, co-CEO, Board Intelligence

Sponsored by: Board Intelligence

16:15

Closing Keynote

Niall Breslin, Inspiring mental health advocate & public speaker

16:40

Closing remarks

Nadine Conlon, President, Irish Region, The Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland

16:45

Conference close

Drinks reception and networking until 19:00