Laura O'Donovan

Laura started out her career in Hospitality and Hotel Management after receiving an honours degree in Hotel Management from GMIT, she soon climbed the ranks to become Sales & Marketing Manager for some of the largest Hotel groups in the Country. As an openly and proud Gay Woman, she has worked alongside LGBTQplus organisations for over 10 years to destigmatise LGBTQplus issues along with and delivering workshops to young people in schools and working with various community projects and charities to do the same. 

Laura started her Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Career when she took up the role as Business Development Director with Women’s Executive Network, who are based out of Canada and helped in organising the Top most Powerful Women in Business Awards for 450 people for 2 years running and ran two Mentor Leadership programs through Smurfit Business School, UCD. She then went on to head up the D&I Management Role in Aer Lingus and is very proud of the work they achieved. Laura set up in Consultancy in Diversity & Inclusion Training during the Pandemic for 1 year and gained a massive insight into the public and private sectors to help Organisations on their D&I Journey. During this time she also completed her QQI in Design Delivery & Assessment of Training and her QQI as Data Protection Officer – just to add a few strings to her bow. 

She has a special interest in physical & mental disabilities as she grew up with an amazing brother who had many complicated disabilities, and so this area holds a special place in her heart. She is delighted to be joining the ICF Ireland Annual Conference.