Leadership

Michael McNamara is the Founder and Director of Macmarts Ltd. He holds a Master of Science in Project Programme Management from The University of Limerick.

He is also CEO of Macnovate Ltd. a manufacturing solutions provider, supplying a complete suite of innovative cost-effective solutions for customers globally.

Michael would say his working career began as a young boy on his uncles farm. It is here after school every day he observed traits that he credits to this day such as innovation, initiative, can do, ownership and responsibility. Following this he joined another uncle in his clay cast moulding business, an ancient craft with roots stretching back to the bronze age. He would then go on to serve an apprenticeship in Toolmaking, Precision Machining, Injection Moulding, Press Tools & Die-Casting among others with Krup’s Eng. Michael then moved into the area of Special Purpose Machine Building with Acorn Automation where he excelled as an Innovator

Joining American multi-national Molex Inc. in 1987 Michael came into his own with multiple recorded achievements. He went on to lead a select team of process engineers who broke boundaries and set new dizzy limits of what could be achieved, sometimes with limited resources and ever reducing budget support due to global cost reduction pressures.

He is a Value Engineering Specialist with over forty years’ hands on experience working at the coalface of an ever-changing, high-octane manufacturing environment. He supports manufacturing companies in the life sciences, healthcare, and other heavily regulated industries, innovating solutions that drive quality excellence, efficiencies, cost effectiveness and sustainability.

Michael places great mass on his global reach, having worked and collaborated in projects in the UK, France, Germany, Israel, USA, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, and Slovakia among others. He has built up a global network of best-in-class partners, innovators, specialised capabilities, and unique skills. 2020+ Globalisation, IoT, social media and cloud computing has made the world a much smaller place. When Mike founded Macnovate he coined the phrase “a globally local company” that’s the weight he places on leveraging regional advantage for his customers, creating a level playing field. He believes if we expect to sell our products in the four corners of the world then likewise we should access these same regions to aid our manufacturing requirements as if they were our local suppliers.

Working in the Global arena is a difficult process, academia and project management experts have long deliberated on this subject matter. Language, cultural differences, and communication present many issues. Macnovate met all these hurdles in their endeavours, dealing with hundreds of engineers, specification changes and update demands presented multiple challenges. Hence, the creation of Macmarts, an innovative solution that has grown legs to become the complete cloud based manufacturing / project Spend Management Solution.”

Michael often jokes when asked about his work experience, “from the bronze age to the cloud age” and lots more school days to come.

Tony is CEO at Macmarts and has over 20 years of senior level sales and marketing experience across a broad range of industries.

Before joining Macmarts Tony was Founder and CEO at ‘Frawley’ – an international branding and marketing consultancy. He has a wealth of experience of working with large enterprises and SME’s as well as early stage startups helping to develop their market positioning, brand strategy, go to market strategy and marketing communications. Some notable clients included Dairygold, McKesson, Munster Bovine, SIG, Viotas, Nualtra and Premier Surgical.

Prior to founding ‘Frawley’, Tony held various commercial positions with Smurfit Kappa and Cook Medical managing key accounts, including Boston Scientific, Diageo, Abbott, Pfizer, Wyeth, Bausch & Lomb, United Drug and Johnson & Johnson.

Tony part-time lectures at the University of Limerick in ‘Marketing Principles and Consumer Behaviour’.

A fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and graduate of the Marketing Institute of Ireland, Tony holds an MSc degree in Marketing and Bachelor of Business Studies.

Tony has given talks and conducted workshops on: Brand Strategy, Go To Market Strategy, Business Model Innovation, Positioning, Marketing Communications, Product Market Fit, Prospecting, Consumer Behaviour, Customer Experience and Brand Messaging.

He is also a board member of Cliona’s Foundation, a charity which provides financial assistance for families with critically and terminally ill children.

Graduating from the University of Limerick in the late 90s, Keith began his career with Gradient Solutions, a Dublin based ecommerce solutions start-up, building a public facing web-based flight booking engine. After selling to early adopters in the Irish sector, Gradient went on to sell to major airlines globally such as KLM and Austrian Airlines. Gradient was acquired by US global distribution systems firm Sabre in 2002.

Keith then moved into “near-shore” consultancy, joining another successful Irish start-up, Limerick based Original Solutions. Keith worked across the banking and telecoms sector including brands such as Vodafone and Bank of Ireland. Original Solutions was acquired by US services provider Perot Systems in 2009 who themselves were later acquired by Dell just a few months later.

Prior to joining Macmarts, Keith worked with yet another start-up, RedOwl Technologies as Technical Architect on their back-office workforce management product. RedOwl was acquired by Active Ops in 2012 where Keith became Lead Technical Architect for their core product Workware. Keith was instrumental in rebuilding the platform transforming the architecture to a cloud based, globally hosted multi-tenanted SaaS platform. Workware (now branded ControlIQ) is used widely across the banking and public sector with customers such as NatWest, Nationwide, ANZ and Fifth Third Bank.”