A NATIVE of West Clare has taken up a prestigious management position at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Professor Alma McCarthy became Head of School at the JE Cairnes School of Business and Economics at the start of this year.
A native of Labasheeda, Professor McCarthy was selected for her passion and dedication to education, her strong leadership experience, and her numerous distinctions and achievements. “I am honoured to take up the role of Head of School,” she said. “The school has grown substantially in recent years with over 2,700 students and 130 staff. The school’s success is recognised through the achievement of various international accreditations and awards. I look forward to working with my colleagues to build on the successes of our school and developing and leading the strategic plan for the next stage of the school’s development, and engaging with key external stakeholders including alumni, industry and policy makers and ensuring the school’s research and teaching has regional and global impact.”
Professor McCarthy joined the NUI Galway in 2002 as a lecturer and researcher in the Discipline of Management and has previously served as the Head of the Management Discipline at NUI Galway, and as Programme Director for the MBA. Her research interests include public sector leadership and human resource development among others, which has led to co-authored books, several chapters in edited books and many articles in highly ranked journals such as the Human Resource Management Journal, the International Journal of Human Resource Management, Public Administration Review, and Human Resource Management Review.
Recently, research led by Professor McCarthy on remote working in the light of the pandemic was used by the government to develop the new National Remote Working Strategy. The research which was recently published by the Tánaiste also involved another Clare native, Tomás Ó Síocháin from Quin, who is CEO of the Western Development Commission (WDC).
Professor McCarthy is a Chartered Member of the CIPD, the American Academy of Management, the Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology, and recently served as elected Vice-Chair and Chair of the Irish Academy of Management. She also led a senior civil service leadership development evaluation project and report commissioned by the Department of Expenditure and Reform and is Principal Investigator for the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded talent management in national science foundations’ research project gathering data in Ireland, New Zealand, Finland, US, Hong Kong and Singapore.