Dr Mary Kelly
- Committee Chair
Biography
Dr Kelly has extensive experience of working in both the private and public sectors. She has served as Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2002 to 2011 and as Chairperson of An Bord Pleanála between 2011 and 2018. She is a well-respected leader with experience in strategy development, change management and corporate governance, as well as chairing boards and high level committees. In her time in the EPA she has been credited with highlighting the issues around climate change and with transforming the Agency from a relatively bureaucratic and inward facing organisation to a more public facing organisation serving the needs of its many stakeholders and the environment. In An Bord Pleanála, aside from assessment and decisions on planning files, she undertook a transformational project moving the organisation from an entirely paper-based system to a digitally enabled organisation. Mary holds a BA (Mod) and a PhD in Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin and an MBA from Dublin City University. Before joining the public sector she worked in the pharmaceutical industry and in the Irish Business and Employers Confederation where she led on environmental affairs. She was elected to membership of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007 where she has served on Council a number of times and is a member of the current Council. In 2018 she was elected to fellowship of the Irish Academy of Engineers and is a serving member of the Council. Mary retired from the public service in 2018 and has since joined the Board of Wexford Festival Opera where she is serving as the current Chair.