Fiona Neary
Fiona Neary, Innovation Accelerator & Start Up Manager, University of Galway
Fiona Neary is a graduate of the University of Galway with over 35 years of experience across both industry and academia. She previously held roles with leading organisations including Covidien and Nortel Networks (now Avaya), before joining the University of Galway more than 20 years ago. There, she has played a key role in supporting innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge transfer, and enterprise development.
Fiona brings extensive expertise in the start-up ecosystem, acting as both a coach and mentor to entrepreneurs across the university. She delivers acceleration programmes and commercialisation roadmaps to help transform early-stage ideas into viable businesses.She has provided comprehensive business development, commercialisation, and training support to more than 100 companies based in the University’s Business Innovation Centre. Fiona also supports the university’s spin-out community in achieving investor readiness.
With strong connections to funding bodies, grant opportunities, and a broad network of mentors, industry leaders, and investors, Fiona is a central figure in the regional innovation ecosystem.