Declan Gordon Carroll has over 40 years’ experience in economic, industrial and enterprise development both within the public and private sectors. He was employed by the Irish Development Agency (IDA) one of the world’s most successful foreign direct investment (FDI) and enterprise development agencies for over 17 years. He also founded and was chief executive of SEBIC an EC BIC for five years.

He has worked, extensively with the EU, EIB and EBRD and with national governments and enterprise support agencies in Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africa in developing and implementing enterprise and competitiveness policy and support structures aimed at improving both the competitiveness and innovation of individual enterprises and the enterprise environment.

In recent years he has designed and developed the Star Venture programme for high potential start-ups being employed by the EBRD across the territories it operates in and also has worked on behalf of the EIB with accelerators in over 14 countries in developing and strengthening their engagement programs and in the direct support of start-ups.

In his career he has assisted in the development of over 500 business development, including technology based Start-ups, investment proposals securing over €250 million in equity, bank funding and grants.