49-member network has new team

The new staff are:

Carol Baumann is a Dublin native, long settled in Galway. Her career in local development began 25 years ago and her career has always had social justice at its core. She has a track record leading complex organisations in challenging operating environments.

In building this team, Carol says she “hopes to draw on its wide range of competencies, experience and expertise to drive the local development sector forward”.

She worked with Galway City Partnership as education and training co-ordinator, before joining Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) supporting the then network of 51 local companies. Her most recent role was as a senior manager with COPE Galway, delivering social services to a range of groups.

In joining the ILDN, Carol sees the unique strengths and capacity of the local development sector and is committed to working with ILDN members and stakeholders in building further on the successes of the past. She was hired as CEO in September last year and leads a new four-person team at the ILDN.

Spiddal, Co Galway-based Conall Greaney has a deep interest in the environment, sustainability and social justice issues and is the ILDN’s finance and administration officer.

He studied at Dundalk Institute of Technology (spending a year on Erasmus in Bremen) then transferred to Leeds Metropolitan University, where he graduated with honours in European Finance and Accounting. He worked in Dublin as an accounts assistant for a contract cleaning company and was promoted to finance manager there before returning to the city of the tribes in 2008.

Before joining the ILDN, he was responsible for finance at Galway-based safety clothing and equipment company Anchor Safety Ltd.

Michelle Mullally is the ILDN’s new programme, impact and communications manager. Her role centres on understanding, measuring and demonstrating the impact of the work of the ILDN’s 49 member organisations.

Michelle’s career has been varied with a common thread of impact measurement and stakeholder engagement. She graduated from UL in Business and French and gained NGO experience with Sightsavers International before moving into event management. She spent ten years with Google before moving back to her hometown of Kilkenny in the early days of the pandemic, where she worked with Veri Connect, who partner with LDCs on biodiversity and social inclusion projects (eg Wild Work, Nore Vision).

Outside work, Michelle is the vice chairperson for her local community-led creche. She has also dipped her toe back into team sports, joining her local ‘Mothers and Others’ Ladies Gaelic football team.

Donegal native Philip O’Donnell joined the ILDN as research, policy and rural affairs officer in April 2023. His role at the ILDN involves identifying and articulating key policy priorities for ILDN members – particularly rural members – and working to ensure that these priorities are embedded in relevant policy.

Before joining the ILDN, Philip held various research and lecturing positions at DCU Business School while he completed his PhD. Most recently, Philip was involved with an international programme of research titled ‘Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Development’.

Philip’s research has focused primarily on informal economic activity in poor and marginalised contexts, and his work has been published in leading academic journals and presented at various research conferences worldwide. His other research interests include social entrepreneurship, community-based entrepreneurship, and family business. Away from work, Philip has a keen interest in sport, and is a playing member of his local GAA club.