We should leave the world better than we found it. Having a mantra and belief behind your organisation can help build a positive culture, high performance teams, and ultimately greater success and impact.

With more than 25 years’ experience across a variety of roles and organisations including BMW Group Ireland, CMRF Crumlin, Focus Ireland, UNICEF Ireland, Independent College Dublin, Carphone Warehouse, DCU, Irish Life, Permanent TSB, Lisa-Nicole has extensive multi-sector experience. She has helped raise more than €80 million for good causes through ideation and innovation, good management, governance and change management and has led organisations to significant growth, success and impact.

Lisa-Nicole was Chair of Charities Institute Ireland until February 2022, and has extensive non-profit board experience. Lisa-Nicole holds a BA, MBA and Dip. Pscyh. Full of creative ideas, she started Shine a Light night, several philanthropy initiatives, and The Lunchtime Circle- a mentoring and think tank for charities and social enterprises. Trusted advisor to several business leaders at executive and non executive level, Lisa-Nicole is passionate about equality, and is voluntary chair of WorkEqual’s IWD campaign and events committee. She founded Mantra in 2020 from a desire to offer premium quality skills from diverse sectors at a senior level to cross-pollinate learnings to other worlds. She is hugely values-driven and brings that to bear at Mantra and the leadership institute.

My mantra is that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Suzanne leads the change, culture, people planning, skills mapping, search function and engagement consulting services at Mantra. She has worked with clients such as Samaritans Ireland and Irish Deaf Society on strategy development and board search.

Suzanne is a strategic HR professional with over 20 years’ experience driving transformational change and growth in senior management roles in both corporate and not for profit organisations including Pieta, St.Vincent de Paul, CMRF, RTE, Voltedge, and 2RN. She is also non executive director at SpunOut and 50808.

I believe in the importance of taking a stop before starting. Taking this pause to reflect, evaluate and bring my whole self to a new project.

Roisin has over 20 years’ experience in the not-for-profit and social sectors. She brings creativity and diverse experience to bear on providing strategic support to Mantra clients such as Tackle Your Feelings and Five Rivers Fostering. With her wide experience of managing social care, mental health organisations, and social inclusion, Roisin works with clients to help them think big and differently. Roisin leads Mantra’s clients in mental health and well-being, and social impact and develops unique ways to get the best out of all our workshops and frameworks. Previous employers and clients include Focus Ireland, A Lust for Life, Blossom Ireland and Social Inclusion Community Impact Programme.  Rosin also has a Masters in Child Protection and Strategy Innovation and Creativity.

Commercial Leadership, Startups, Digital Transformation and Customer Experience.

Bruce Bullock has a career in senior leadership which has spanned Operations, B2C and B2B sales, Marketing and most recently setting up corporate start ups and accelerators in Ireland with Permanent TSB and The Irish Independent (Mediahuis).

Working for companies such as GE and Liberty Global (Virgin Media, VodafoneZiggo)  Bruce has gained a huge amount of experience in multiple markets which enables him to apply tried and tested best practices in the commercial disciplines as well as having designed and led Digital Transformation programmes across jurisdictions.

Experienced working from front line to board level Bruce is also Certified in Six Sigma and an alumni of IMD in Laussanne. Bruce works with Mantra clients on a variety of commercial development, activation and process planning.  

Julie is a fundraising, marketing and communications specialist, with leadership experience to CEO level. Julie is also a Board Director and member of the Audit and Risk Committee of the PayPal Giving Fund Ireland. She has raised over AU$190 million for charities of all sizes, blending creativity with strategy to achieve significant outcomes.

As General Manager, St Vincent de Paul Society (Vinnies), Julie was the driving force behind the hugely successful Vinnies CEO Sleepout, which has gone on to raise over AUD$80 million. More recently as CEO of The Funding Network (TFN), Julie was awarded a 'Probono Australia Impact 25 Award' (2021) in recognition of her success steering TFN through the pandemic. By using technology to transform TFN’s live-crowdfunding events into an engaging virtual format TFN increased funds raised by 83% and delivered a new commercial offering that built sustainability.

Experience spanning broadcasting, education, local area development and training, for the past 10 year's David has specialised in designing and delivering leadership and organisational development programmes nationally and internationally. World Rugby, Allied Irish Bank, HubSpot and Medtronic amongst many others. David is adept at creating experiences to help individuals, teams and organisations understand that success in leadership and business is as much a matter of the heart as it is a matter of the head and to identify how they can connect with this idea in real and tangible ways.

With a background in advertising and brand strategy, David set up his own agency in London before moving to Ireland to run the Irish arm of Brand Union (now SuperUnion) - at the time one of the largest branding agencies globally. David, and his company Brand Doc, have worked on rebranding and repurposing strategies with clients including Tusla,  GAA, Vodafone, Nesta, Stena Line, Irish Cancer Society, Focus Ireland, ISPCA & Nordisk Film and also works internationally with gaming brands. David supports selected Mantra projects on matters of strategic branding, repositioning and purpose.

Liz is an experienced research leader with a strong background in research design, implementation and evaluation for both the public and private sectors. With a PhD in Applied Biochemistry from DCU and an MSc in Healthcare Leadership from RCSI, Liz began her career as a researcher in the field of immunodiagnostics working in the UK and the US before moving into the area of research management and programme development on her return to Ireland.

Throughout her career, she has identified the strengths and weaknesses within the current health system and has utilised this to help develop unique structures and processes to navigate these challenges within clinical programmes, health projects and industry collaborations. Liz has a strong background in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and their implementation and has more than 60 publications in peer reviewed journals (H index of 25; ~2748 citations).She has provided strategic planning, project oversight, subject matter expertise and consultancy support to a number of Irish government health projects and programmes over the past number of years, as well as supporting private sector clients and charities. She has significant experience of stakeholder engagement and qualitative research from her previous role as research director and network manager for Perinatal Ireland and the HRB funded Mother & Baby Clinical Trials Network. 

Liz has specialist experience in the design and implementation of impactful education and outreach initiatives and has developed an award winning dissemination and outreach programme, alongside multiple novel health education and promotion campaigns. Her more recent work has focused on STEM engagement, DEI in leadership and gender representation studies.

David has varied experience in policy, politics, communications, media & and market research. In addition to significant external communications and public affairs experience, he is a political analyst and operated as Director of Social and Political Research at AudienceNet, a London-based public opinion research agency, where he ran research projects across more than 30 countries.

David worked as a policy advisor in Brussels for a respected EU think tank and the European Parliament for six years. He has a Master's degree in Comparative Politics and an International Bachelor's degree. David is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a member of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland, and serves on the associate board of the Museum of Childhood Ireland. He helps Mantra clients, including the Irish Deaf Society, with advocacy, research, horizon scanning, and strategy.

Waad has extensive knowledge and a strong interest in business management and marketing. She completed her Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, with a focus on Marketing Management, in May 2019. She received the prestigious Abdelrahman Sagroon Award for her outstanding research in business and marketing management. Her research focused on the private healthcare sector, and her recommendations had a direct impact on one of the private hospitals in her study. During her time at university Waad actively contributed to the academic community by assisting fellow graduate students and professors with their research projects and preparations for research presentations. Waad's nomadic childhood and bicultural lifestyle have given her the ability to form strong bonds and connections with people from diverse backgrounds.

Auveen Bell has an engineering background and qualification, and worked in Product Marketing Management in Motorola. She subsequently through lived experience of a lack of disability services founded Blossom Ireland a social enterprise and subsequently won several funding awards, and grew the organisation to provide skills based training for young people aged 14 and over with a disability. After 12 years she has started consulting and speaking, and is a recently appointed associate strategy and leadership consultant with Mantra.

A highly experienced fundraising and marketing director with over 15 years’ experience leading effective and impactful, income growth and diversification strategies. Sinéad has an outstanding track record of success with extensive experience in community & events fundraising, not-for profit retail development, individual giving programmes, corporate sponsorship and philanthropy.

Sinéad has led teams to raise over €50m and worked extensively across SMT’s, boards and trustees. Sinead holds a Master’s in Strategic Marketing from DCU, a Diploma in PR, is a QQI Level 6 Trainer and is passionate about developing people through coaching, education and experience. Sinead works on Funding Strategies and Fundraising and Leadership Coaching Development with selected Mantra clients including Simon Communities of Ireland and Social Entrepreneurs Ireland.

John is a fully qualified executive coach and mentor with over two decades of sales leadership experience at global technology giants like Microsoft, Oracle and Panasonic, also SME’s and startups. He leverages his sales leadership, coaching and sports background to unlock potential and drive both individual and team transformation.

John’s philosophy on developing high performance teams starts with enabling people to build better habits, to identify those that aren’t working, to change fundamental attitudes & beliefs and to create innovative strategies that really work. John offers personalised, challenging coaching plans tailored to individual needs, focusing on Emotional Intelligence, performance, clarity and fulfilment, this allows clients to discover deeper motivations for lasting change.

ICF Diploma in Personal, Business and Executive Coaching. Accredited practitioner for Talogy EIP 3™ Emotional Intelligence Profiling. Business Management Diploma, NCI Dublin. CMI Level 5 Award, Leadership & Management, Chartered Management Institute. Prince 2, Foundation in Project Management. Leading Effective Decision Making, Yale School of Management. Leading & Building Effective teams, Columbia Business School. Microsoft D365 CRM Fundamentals, Azure Fundamentals, Azure AI Fundamentals, Azure security, compliance & identity fundamentals | The Coaching Habit | High Performance Mindset – Microsoft Certifications. Introduction to Psychology, Certificate, Yale University.

Career hightlights include Senior Sales Lead roles in Oracle & Microsoft Technologies, Valecrown Technology. and Escher Group, SalesOptimize, Panasonic, Xtralis.

Dee McMahon, MA, ACA

Associate Director - Finance and Operations

My Mantra is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reason and don’t worry about it.

Dee is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years’ leadership experience in providing transparency and assurance to high-profile, international organisations.

Martina Lennon

VA to CEO, Accounts payable, Project coordination, and Research

Martina works closely with the Mantra team to help ensure we hit milestones, plan and schedule effectively and efficiently for clients.

Martina has extensive experience in finance, administration and provides detailed research and analytic support for key projects.

Mantra works with many partners to offer tailored programs for your needs. We have a range of additional trusted partners to support various projects. We also collaborate with special partners in the UK, Ireland and the Nordics for our work.

Who should engage Mantra?

 

Dreamers.

Any organisation big or small who wants to create a strategy, imagine a better way. Distressed businesses, alliances dreaming of another way to deliver impact.

Values-driven.

Organisations who care about communities, the environment, social difference, their customers. CEOs, HR, strategy, marketing, change leaders.

Sectors.

Health organisations, membership organisations, low carbon and ESG businesses, scaling companies, financial services, pharmaceutical, retailers, SMEs, social enterprises, FMCG, automotive industry, media, education sector and institutions, disability, non profit