Liam Cronin
CEO. RDI HUB.
Liam is CEO of the RDI Hub which is a world-class centre for design-led, digital innovation located in Ireland’s South West. A first of its kind, RDI Hub focuses on digitisation, ideation and commercialisation of innovation and research in the fintech and related technologies’ sectors. RDI Hub is a not-for-profit partnership between Private Enterprise (Fexco), HEI Research (Institute of Technology Tralee) and Government (Kerry County Council). The RDI Hub will support Irish and international talent by fostering a design-led living lab ecosystem focused on digitisation and scaling business through training, accelerator programmes for startups and innovation services for established companies. Liam previously worked in Trinity College Dublin’s ADAPT Research Centre where he was Associate Director of Commercialisation. In that position, Liam successfully attracted and developed partnerships with new industry collaborators across a range of industry sectors including FinTech, connected health, automotive, agritech and traditional ICT sectors, in Europe, the US and Asia (Japan and China). Liam was the first Director of Commercialisation at ADAPT and exceeded all targets, over the 3.5 years in role. During his time at the ADAPT Centre, Liam devised and implemented a “ONE Trinity” approach to successfully integrate the full expertise of Trinity College Dublin to attract partners. He worked with academic researchers in the Schools of Business, Psychology and Health in conjunction with the School of Computer Science and Statistics to provide a compelling value proposition for industry partners. Liam also advanced activities to support researchers with innovative ideas and fostered spin-in opportunities to setup impactful startup companies. Prior to the ADAPT Centre, Liam worked for 25 years across Microsoft business units in Ireland and Western Europe, including sales and marketing, education, product development and Internationalisation / globalisation. He was responsible for monitoring and understanding the Western Europe competitive market and trends, for all lines of Microsoft business (cloud, devices, and services), through market scanning (traditional and social media channels). His expertise saw him identify competitive growth opportunities and oversee execution of integrated sales and marketing plans to drive share growth and revenue. Liam is a member of the High Potential Enterprise Ireland Startup Mentoring panel, specialising in supporting start-up’s with product / market fit, customer discovery, competitive analysis, fund-raising efforts and accelerator applications. He is currently a supervisor of applied projects on the Post-Graduate diploma in Product Management in TU Dublin. In addition, Liam was the former CTO / COO of Right to Sight Technology where he secured funding to develop a proof of concept for a cataract surgery training simulator and completed the NDRC launchpad programme.
Liam is CEO of the RDI Hub which is a world-class centre for design-led, digital innovation located in Ireland’s South West. A first of its kind, RDI Hub focuses on digitisation, ideation and commercialisation of innovation and research in the fintech and related technologies’ sectors. RDI Hub is a not-for-profit partnership between Private Enterprise (Fexco), HEI Research (Institute of Technology Tralee) and Government (Kerry County Council). The RDI Hub will support Irish and international talent by fostering a design-led living lab ecosystem focused on digitisation and scaling business through training, accelerator programmes for startups and innovation services for established companies. Liam previously worked in Trinity College Dublin’s ADAPT Research Centre where he was Associate Director of Commercialisation. In that position, Liam successfully attracted and developed partnerships with new industry collaborators across a range of industry sectors including FinTech, connected health, automotive, agritech and traditional ICT sectors, in Europe, the US and Asia (Japan and China). Liam was the first Director of Commercialisation at ADAPT and exceeded all targets, over the 3.5 years in role. During his time at the ADAPT Centre, Liam devised and implemented a “ONE Trinity” approach to successfully integrate the full expertise of Trinity College Dublin to attract partners. He worked with academic researchers in the Schools of Business, Psychology and Health in conjunction with the School of Computer Science and Statistics to provide a compelling value proposition for industry partners. Liam also advanced activities to support researchers with innovative ideas and fostered spin-in opportunities to setup impactful startup companies. Prior to the ADAPT Centre, Liam worked for 25 years across Microsoft business units in Ireland and Western Europe, including sales and marketing, education, product development and Internationalisation / globalisation. He was responsible for monitoring and understanding the Western Europe competitive market and trends, for all lines of Microsoft business (cloud, devices, and services), through market scanning (traditional and social media channels). His expertise saw him identify competitive growth opportunities and oversee execution of integrated sales and marketing plans to drive share growth and revenue. Liam is a member of the High Potential Enterprise Ireland Startup Mentoring panel, specialising in supporting start-up’s with product / market fit, customer discovery, competitive analysis, fund-raising efforts and accelerator applications. He is currently a supervisor of applied projects on the Post-Graduate diploma in Product Management in TU Dublin. In addition, Liam was the former CTO / COO of Right to Sight Technology where he secured funding to develop a proof of concept for a cataract surgery training simulator and completed the NDRC launchpad programme.