Our Team

Duncan is an experienced Consultant and Project Manager with 25 years’ experience in the UK and Irish Healthcare, Disability and Social Housing sectors. Since 2003 Duncan has worked in the voluntary housing and social economy sectors in Ireland, working at all levels from managing individual housing development projects, establishing & scaling a work integration social enterprise, to strategic level on a number of Boards of Management. Duncan currently works as a consultant with Collaboration Ireland, a small team of consultants working across the Island of Ireland. Collaboration Ireland provide a range of services to the public, social economy and community & voluntary sectors, with Duncan’s area of expertise focussing on the development, growth and governance of social enterprises.

A solicitor by profession, Andrew Talbot is a Director at Collaboration Ireland and a specialist in collaborations, charity mergers and governance. Since 2010 Andrew has worked exclusively in the voluntary and community and social enterprise sector in Ireland. He has supported a huge number of alliances, partnerships, and mergers between voluntary and community and social enterprise organisations. Andrew was an adviser for NICVA in Belfast for seven years, providing training, facilitation, and project support to the voluntary and community sector on governance, charity law, legal structures and collaborative working – Andrew has particular expertise in facilitating charity mergers. Since becoming an independent consultant in 2017, Andrew has continued to work as a NICVA Associate and a CO3 Associate whilst also providing advice, support and mentoring to social enterprises under Work West’s Go Social programme and Development Trust NI’s Support Network for Social Entrepreneurs project.

Maighréad is an experienced Consultant and Director at Collaboration Ireland and has been working in the community and voluntary sector for over 30 years. She has a depth of understanding of the community, voluntary and health sector – its operational and policy context, its political sensitivities and its people, organisations, and systems. Prior to becoming a consultant in 2018, Maighréad worked in the disability sector for over 25 years
and was responsible for establishing new services, setting up projects in the community and managing large teams of staff which included training and facilitating meetings, and workshops. Maighréad is also a Safeguarding and Risk Consultant who will undertake investigations and inquiries on behalf of disability organisations in the Munster Region. Maighréad is both experienced and knowledgeable in the area of governance and assessing governance compliance within companies. She will partner with your charity, organisation, or social enterprise to help your CEO and Board of Directors to identify the areas of priority in order to be compliant with the Charity Regulators Code.

Chris is a specialist in social enterprise and the social economy. Chris serves as CEO of the Irish Social Enterprise Network (Socent.ie), Managing Partner of Collaboration Ireland and an Adjunct Teaching Fellow of Trinity Business School. Chris also volunteers as Chair of Far and Wild social enterprise and is President of the Irish US Alumni Association. Chris is a former Country Partner for the BCorp community in Ireland. Chris’ work focuses on leading and managing European and nationwide projects on Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Responsibility, Social Impact, Startups, Cooperatives, Exporting, SMEs in Ireland and leading a life of passion and purpose. Chris engages on national discourse and policy development providing sectoral reporting, supports and proposals to government. Chris sits on the National Social Enterprise Policy Implementation Group, has hosted the European Social Economy Summit in Mannheim and the European Social Economy Awards in Slovenia. Chris is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management in the UK, Social Innovation Fellow from StartingBloc in the US, a Constellations Society Fellow from France, Tällberg Pathfinder Fellow from Sweden and a US Department of State awardee on Social Enterprise and Tackling Long Term Unemployment programme. Chris is trained as a Climate Reality Leader and is a qualified Erickson Coach. Chris is also a Member of the Institute of Directors Ireland and has
Certificate in Company Direction. Chris has a degree in Theoretical Physics from Queen’s University Belfast, a Masters in Business from the University of Ulster and has qualifications from the Institute of Banking, LIA and UCD.