Eileen O’Neill

Eileen is a senior leader in Enterprise Ireland, an Irish semi state body which supports Irish owned enterprises to start, develop and innovate in Global Markets. She was one of the founding members of EI Toastmasters in 2016. She likes to keep fit with running and regular visits to the gym and completed the Dublin City Marathon in 2024.

Eileen is married in Dublin with three adult children. Originally from Monaghan, Eileen noticed that her home county was one of only a few in Ireland that did not have a Toastmasters club so she linked up with some other Toastmasters with a Monaghan background and together they chartered Monaghan Toastmasters, the only community club to charter in the first Covid year, 20/21.

She was Division C Director in 2019/20 and managed the transition to online meetings for clubs in the Division and a very successful end of year Divisional Recognition Event. In 2020/21 Eileen joined the District 71 Leadership Team as Finance Manager and continued this role for a second year. During this time she introduced a new process for claiming incentives and opened a District store based in Northern Ireland where members could easily spend incentives earned and buy Toastmasters shop items with a fast turnaround time.

During her time as Finance Manager Eileen project managed the production of Ted Corcoran’s book “The History of Toastmasters in the UK and Ireland” and hosted a high profile launch of the book in Dublin in 2022. She says that she hasn’t yet discounted the possibility of a wider launch at a future date!

Eileen was awarded Toastmaster of the Year in 2021/22 in recognition of the many projects she managed during that year.

Eileen strongly believes that Toastmasters is a powerful program for helping people to overcome their fear of speaking and believes that organisations could very successfully establish a club in support of their employee development program and this will be a key focus for her as leader of the Bright Sparks team in 2024/25.