Mary McKenna is an exited serial tech entrepreneur and angel investor based in Ireland. She co-founded and subsequently sold successful Irish online learning business Learning Pool. Since selling her company, Mary has worked extensively with early stage and scaling ventures and has personally invested in 35 or so early stage tech startups to date.

In 2020 she co-founded Irish community of women founders AwakenHub along with three other women and in 2023 the same team of four co-founded Ireland’s first and only women-led angel syndicate, AwakenAngels. AwakenAngels began actively investing in September 2024 and the Syndicate has so far made 8 investments into women-owned businesses based in Ireland.

Mary is a distinguished visiting Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Oxford and a Royal Society funded E.I.R. at Ulster University. She was both the European Female Business Angel of the Year and the UK Business Angels Association UK Angel of the Year in 2023/24. Mary is an Innovation Expert for the European Union on their flagship €9bn EIC Accelerator and she has recently joined the Investment Committee of Lithuanian VC Fund CoInvest. She is a visible role model, commentator and speaker.

Mary was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2014 New Year’s Honours for services to digital technology, innovation and learning.

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