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Name: Michael McGahon

Job Title: Head of Project Management, Systems & Compliance

How long have you worked with us?

Almost 18 years

Tell us a little bit about your role please

As the job title implies, I have three different ‘hats’ that I wear – separately or all at once depending on the scenario!

• Day-to-day I manage the systems team – which involves scoping, prioritising and managing development for the systems used throughout the business.
• As well as that, I have responsibility for project management in the company. Where requirements arise this involves leading cross-functional teams to achieve specific business goals. In recent times that has heavily been focused on integrating new acquisitions to the business – including the people, systems, customers and so on.
• Finally, the compliance aspect is centred mostly on our ISMS (Information Security Management System) – ensuring that we maintain our ISO27001 certification, maintaining the relevant policies, conducting risk assessments, internal audits and so forth.

Give us the highlights tour of your career to date

I started with Digiweb in Dundalk not long after leaving university in May 2005. I was in charge of provisioning new services, initially by myself (the company was much smaller then) but eventually as manager of the Provisioning Team. We worked on rolling out a lot of new services to customers including DSL, Metro Wireless, Schools Broadband (which was predominately via Satellite in those days) and Voice.n

After 10 years I moved to Viatel in a similar role and a couple of years later joined the Viatel systems team in a Business Analyst/Project Manager position, working with the business and our developers to define and implement required changes to our internal systems. I was also involved in project managing the integration of the various companies acquired by Viatel. n

Then in 2022 I was promoted to my current position.n

What do you love most about working with Viatel?

It’s impossible to get bored given the fast-changing environment and the variety of projects that come up. Things can be challenging but this provides a lot of scope for learning and I think that the company provides an environment and a culture where people are free to innovate and develop.

Describe yourself in three words

Focused, determined, analytical.

Tell us something we don’t know about you

After I finished playing Gaelic Football a few years back, I took up running to stay fit. Originally, I thought it might be a reasonable goal to run a marathon. But after the first one I think I got the bug and I’ve now run nine with two further planned for this year including one of the world majors in Chicago in October.

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