David Duffy

David Duffy is Ireland’s leading practitioner, author, educator, and evangelist on all things corporate governance. He has extensive experience working on strategy consulting assignments in the USA, UK, Ireland, and Europe.

David graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a Bachelor of Business Studies Degree and is a Chartered Accountant, trained with PwC in London. He also holds an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

He co-founded The Corporate Governance Institute to democratise the education of directors globally by providing accredited and online programmes, so learners can learn where they want when they want.  It is now the largest provider of qualified company directors globally. 

 David has extensive experience in assisting organisations to improve their governance in listed and private companies, financial institutions, public sector organisations, hospitals and healthcare organisations, national and international non-profits, charities, membership organisations, sporting bodies, universities, regulators, and rails transportation organisations.

He is a member of the Institute of Directors in Dublin and the UK.  He was a board member of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, The Ireland Funds, Eurogroup Paris, Health Tech Ireland, Trinity Business Alumni, IMD Alumni Ireland, and Carr’s Children’s Services. 

He is a former President of Trinity Business Alumni and The Institute of Management Consultants. He is currently on the board of Accounting Technicians Ireland.

He has served on Boards in France, UK, and Ireland as a Chair, Non-Executive Director, Executive Director, and Company Secretary.

David has authored “The Practical Guide To” series, with three books already under the flagship, published by Chartered Accountants Ireland. He is a frequent speaker on corporate governance and has spoken at various conferences and webinars in Dublin, Dubai, Cyprus, Lausanne, London, and Tehran.

David also contributes to various media and has been featured in The Irish Times, Irish Independent, and the Business Post in addition to discussing the latest corporate governance scandals on RTE, the state broadcaster, and Newstalk.

In his spare time, he has been on summer courses in Skyros in Greece to learn how to be a stand-up comedian (if all else fails!) and how to write for comedy to see how he can make the topic of corporate governance stimulating and engaging.

David graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a Bachelor of Business Studies Degree and is a Chartered Accountant and trained with PWC in London. He also holds an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Professional Career

David ran Accenture’s Strategy Practice from 1986 to 1990 and founded his own company Prospectus Strategy Consultants in 1991 which at the time was Ireland's only specialist corporate strategy firm. Its branding was colourful and loud so that it would stand out from the established providers. It was a disrupter at the time. 

David has worked on strategy consulting assignments in the USA, UK, Ireland, and Europe. 

He got his first assignment to conduct a corporate governance diagnostic for a client of  Europe's largest Venture Capital organisation - Enterprise Ireland without knowing that much about the topic in the early 2000s which was still in its infancy as a discipline.  Faced with this dilemma he searched for practical books on corporate governance but could not find one.  So he wrote the first book in Ireland on the topic called “ A Practical Guide to Corporate Governance - The Management of Management”.  It was launched by Mary Harney TD, the Minister for Enterprise in the Irish Government at the time.

 Needless to say, the book was ahead of its time and was neither “popular nor profitable” but it was the starting point for his career in corporate governance.

David is also the co- founder of The Corporate Governance Institute. He is also the founder of The Governance Company, a specialist corporate governance advisory company that specialises in the evaluation of the performance of boards of directors.

Published Work

He is the author of the following publications:

·     A Practical Guide to Corporate Governance – The Management of Management (2006)

·     The Chairman’s Guide – Practical Guidelines for Leaders (2007)

·     “A Practical Guide to Corporate Governance” published by Chartered Accountants Ireland (2014)

·     “A Practical Guide for Company Directors” published by Chartered Accountants Ireland (2017)

David is a frequent speaker on corporate governance and has spoken at conferences in  Dublin, Dubai, Cyprus, Lausanne, London, and Tehran. He has delivered webinars on a host of corporate governance topics.

He is also a frequent contributor to the media and has been featured in The Irish Times, Irish Independent, and the Business Post in addition to discussing the latest corporate governance scandals on RTE, the state broadcaster, and Newstalk.

David's vision for The Corporate Governance Institute is for it to be recognised as the leading provider of Corporate Governance and ESG education programmes for leaders at the executive and board levels globally. These programmes are online and accredited.

He believes that if we can improve governance on the planet it will be a safer place to live.

The Institute does this by using the latest pedagogy to support effective adult learning. It also uses the latest technology to capture expert views on videos around the world on current topics which can be fed to our learners, polls to identify governance trends, Virtual Reality, and using actors to act out boardroom scenarios.

In time, The Corporate Governance Institute will become the leading global certification body for director education.