About

Dave A. Barry, Chartered FCIPD

Alicante City  |  Online  |  Cork

A human resource management postgraduate of University College Cork, subsequent to initial roles in travel and retail Dave joined global biopharmaceutical Eli Lilly in 1999 for thirteen years across human resources, lean six sigma, finance, and three Cork sites.

Keen to diversify via leading in other sectors, Dave left Lilly in 2011 and following a Dublin telecoms project role joined cybersecurity leader Trend Micro in Cork in 2013 as head of HR – EMEA operations centre/Ireland and interim southern Europe.

Passionate about strategic talent management and the connecting of unjoined dots to achieve same, Dave left Trend in 2016 to first consult in life sciences including an HR leadership secondment to BioMarin in Cork, prior to establishing own consultancy Conexion.ie® in 2018.

In addition to keynote speaking on both organizational connection and life/work coaching, and hosting corporate, HR or other events, Dave continues to champion Cork business and is also an Alicante Community InterNations Ambassador and tourism advocate.

Dave Keynote Speaking (including as a Front Row Speaker since October 2024)

The organizational connection series:

Signature Speech: Join organizational dots, bringing you higher
- Culture for connection
- Strategy for leadership
- People for Talent​

Thought Leadership: Please please never have accidental managers
- The right managers, in the right roles
- Modeling company values throughout
- Continously developing emotional intelligence

Deep Dive: Put your people first with strategic talent focus
- Attracting and hiring for speedier productivity
- Managing for optimized business, developing for flexible capability
- Engaging for increased productivity, retaining for reduced turnover

The life/work coaching series:

Deep Dive: 321 to start moving from work/life to life/work 
- Three current-year positives
- Two lessons learned
- One clear need

Thought Leadership: 'Lean six sigma' transform your work or life 
- Opportunity, goal, and scope
- Improving or redesigning
- Actioning and sustaining

Signature Speech: The bring-me-joy scale of life and work
- Bring Me Joy
- See When See
- No Longer Connected

Dave Speaking Engagements

Upcoming:

- February 2026, Retail Ireland Skillnet 'Retail Learning Summit 2026', Dublin (keynote speaker)

- April 2026, Alicante Nomad Summit, in-person five day event (speaker and co-MC)

Previous:

- 24 Stories (Cork, speaker)

- Alicante Startups (speaker)

- Bright Horizons (Ireland, speaker)

- Cork Chamber Skillnet (recurring speaker, MC and moderator)

- Cork Entrepreneurs Network (repeat speaker)

- Customer Contact Management Association (Ireland, speaker)

- Department of Defence (Ireland, speaker)

- EmployFlex (Cork, speaker)

- Family Friendly Ireland Awards (speaker)

- International Society of Automation (Ireland, MC and moderator)

- Irish Institute of Continuing Professional Development (speaker)

- Local Enterprise Office Cork City (speaker)

- Local Government Management Association (Ireland, speaker)

- Network Cork (speaker)

- Public Affairs Ireland (repeat speaker)

- Rezoomo (Ireland, repeat speaker)

- Republic of Work (Cork, repeat speaker)

- Saros (Ireland, speaker)

- Skillnet Ireland (speaker)

- The Sweeney Show (Cork, speaker)

- Teagasc (Ireland, speaker)

Conexion Trusted Associates

- Insights, intelligence and ideas: Colette Quinn at Real Insights

- Careers, coaching and wellbeing: Aideen Shannon at FlexiSmart

- Change, leadership and EI: Anne Marie Crowley at AM Crowley Coaching

- Events, brand and sponsorship: Leigh Gillen at Leigh Gillen Events

Conexion Trusted Providers

- Financial wellbeing: Karen Goodliffe at SurePlan Financial

- Website and support: Łukasz Mądrzak at REDStudio