MICHAEL O’CONNOR is CEO of CorkBIC, a venture consultancy specialising in high technology or innovative projects usually involving international growth. Previous experience was manufacturing and sales start ups with Raychem Corporation before co-founding Intepro, a venture capital backed Irish IT start-up. Responsible for strategy and sales and marketing in the European start-up and led the US market entry with several rounds of international venture capital before divesting to a Swiss multinational. He graduated in Engineering from Cambridge, is a Chartered Engineer and holds an MBA from London Business School specialising in strategy and in International Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a Board Member of Cork Chamber and it@cork.