Eleanor O'Higgins (BA, MSc, MBA, PhD) is on the faculty of the School of Business at UCD and is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She specialises in teaching, research and publications on business ethics, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and strategic and public management. She is the author of numerous papers in academic and professional journals, newspaper articles, book chapters and case studies. She has received a number of international awards for peer reviewed articles on business ethics and governance. Her case studies and research work on the airline industry and on Ryanair have also received prestigious international awards.

Eleanor serves on the editorial boards of several international management, ethics and corporate governance journals. She carries out a range of national and international teaching and speaking assignments. She is a member of the Business Ethics and of the Public Management & Governance interfaculty groups of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS). She has held a range of leadership positions in the US Academy of Management, including chairing the Ethics Committee and the International Theme Committee. 

Eleanor is on the board of St. James’s University Hospital, the largest teaching hospital in Ireland, where she serves on the Management Development and on the Audit committees. Previously, she was a member of the Press Council of Ireland; and a member of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) Sustainable Enterprise Group. She has served on the board of directors of IDA Ireland, the state body for inward investment, and on the board of The Marine Institute. She has also served as a director of Transparency International Ireland and of the Well Woman Group of health clinics.

In addition to her membership and chairmanship of various boards and working committees, her practical experience includes her earlier managerial career and her consulting work on strategy, board effectiveness, corporate governance, ethics and corporate social responsibilities. Previously, she worked as staff development manager at RTE, the Irish state broadcasting company, and prior to that, as a clinical psychologist in the Irish health services and as a research psychologist at Harvard University Medical School.