Tom O’Higgins BA MSc FCA AITI MCIPD

Ministerial Nominee

Tom O’Higgins was a partner at PwC from 1969 to 2000. A Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland; he served on its Council from 1982 to 1993 and was President in 1991/92.
He is a graduate of University College Dublin and Sheffield Hallam Business School. and a Master Coach from Middlesex University. He is a member of the Irish Taxation Institute and of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

A specialist in corporate governance, he has lectured extensively on governance and board effectiveness and conducted many reviews in state bodies, private companies, third level Institutions, hospitals and not for profit organisations. He is a founder of Praesta Ireland, the leading executive coaching and mentoring firm.

A director of Concern Worldwide and its UK and US subsidiaries from 1997 to 2008, he was Chairman from 1999 to 2003. He was a director of AMK Cambodia, Concern’s micro-finance affiliate from 2003 to 2014 and chairman from 2004 to 2010. He was a Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights Commission from 2001 to 2011.

He was a director of the Coombe Women’s and Infants’ University Hospital, and chairman from 2003 to 2007, and a director of Tallaght Hospital from 2011 to 2014. He was a member of the Governance Committee of the Royal College of Surgeons, a trustee of the Holocaust Education Trust, and is a director of a number of private companies. He was chairman of the Older and Bolder Campaign from 2006 to 2010.

He is chairman or a member of the Audit Committees at a number of state bodies, including the Commission for Energy Regulation and the National University. He has chaired the audit committees at the Department of Education and Science, the Courts Service, the HSE, the Office of the DPP, the Office of the Attorney General, the Houses of the Oireachtas, Dublin Institute of Technology, Concern Worldwide and other public bodies and government departments.