Hi everybody my name is Richard O’Callaghan, and as the name of the blog suggests, I am the Chief Executive of the IIPA. The IIPA is the Institute of Incorporated Public Accountants is an Irish Professional Accounting Body which is recognised by the Irish Government under the terms of the Companies Acts. At the IIPA we regulate our members, provide a range of education and training services, represent the interests of our members nationally and internationally, and ensure that the services our members provide are of the highest quality.

I have a range of educational qualifications in a number of different disciplines including a MA in public administration from the Institute of Public Administration (a constituent college of the National University of Ireland), a BBS (also from the IPA), I am also a Chartered Management Accountant and a Chartered Public Financial Accountant. In addition I am a qualified electronics technician, a qualified systems analyst, and a Certified eLearning Professional. I am a member of the Irish Institute of Training and Development, an associate of the Institute of IT Training and a member of the Irish Computer Society.

I began my working life in Irish Rail as a cleaner, moving from there to working for what was then called the Department of Social Welfare, where I worked at different times as a manager and as an inspector in the Special Investigation Unit. I moved from there to the Patents Office and the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, where I worked again as a manager, a trademark examiner, and an internal business analyst. From there I moved to work as a Finance Specialist in the Institute of Public Administration – providing finance training, consulting and education. I have also worked for myself for a number of years – and I am now also the CEO of the IIPA.

As you can imagine my interests range across accounting and finance, business, people management, computer software and hardware, control and investigations. This makes each day exciting and different. I welcome any input you might have and look forward to hearing from you..

Richard