Joe O’ Keeffe BE, MEd, FCIPDJoe is a graduate of the General Electric (USA) Management Program. Experience includes General Manager & M.D. with leading companies, incl. Emerson Electric, AT&T and Apple (in Ireland & USA). With AT&T, Joe was General Manager of three facilities producing telecoms hardware. He joined Apple Computer with responsibility for European manufacturing. He subsequently moved to the USA as Director of Operations in charge of over 1,000 employees. Joe has served on a number of corporate boards and as Chairman of VC-backed companies involving eight VCs and over €40m investment. These include Comnitel [acquired by IBM in 2007] and LeTSystems [acquired by Trimble in 2010]. In 2002 he completed research on the mentoring of entrepreneurs, leading to a University of Hull MEd Degree. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development. He provides executive search, mentoring and strategic consulting services to companies in technology and other sectors. Joe believes that VCs invest in people and has special interest in what he calls ‘the soft stuff’.