Meet the team

Jim Costello, Chief Executive Officer

Jim Costello has worked with SouthWestern since 2003. Previously he spent 15 years in the Information Technology and Outsourcing Sectors in Ireland and Internationally. In the Outsourcing and IT sector, he was Finance Director for Unisys Corporation in Europe, General Manager of Managed Services in France and Global Managing Director of the Unisys/Dell Managed Services Alliance, a $120m managed Services business. He joined SouthWestern as the company moved from IT processing in Department of Agriculture into a full Business Process Outsourcing company. Since then the company has grown through the delivery of true value-add to all existing and new customers.

Through this experience, Jim's career has been involved in delivering “mission critical” solutions for large and major customers around the world where excellent service has always been the benchmark. In addition Jim has studied Business excellence models in University of Ulster and Stanford University, Ca. Jim has a passion for business excellence and his ambition is to deliver this to all SW clients though great service.

Outside of work Jim and his wife Judy, have three children, enjoys all sports (especially Kilkenny hurling) and lives close to Kinsale, Co. Cork.

Paddy Morrissey, Chief Financial Officer

Paddy has overall responsibility for the Finance Department of SouthWestern and also supports the other members of the management team in managing various aspects of the business on a day to day basis.

Paddy qualified as a chartered accountant in 1997. Between then and 2008, Paddy worked primarily in the financial services industry for companies such as KPMG in the Channel Islands and Fortis and FEXCO in Ireland. Paddy has gained invaluable experience in areas such as audit and internal control, financial control and analysis, systems implementation and treasury management.

Paddy is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and is an associate member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT).

John Carroll, Head of Government contracts

John has been with SouthWestern since graduating from UCC in the late 1980s and since the mid 90s has been working closely with various Government Departments on contracts relating to data capture and database management which have been at the core of various National schemes. These include: the Department of Agriculture’s National Calf Registration Service and Animal Movement System; Bord Bia’s On-farm Quality Assurance Auditing and the National Pig Movement and Identification Scheme. John has the overall responsibility within the company for the introduction and implementation of these projects, and their subsequent day to day operation. 

The Division that John heads up consists of 150 employees across all the above contracts.
John has a background in IT and therefore has both a technical and business understanding of implementing new contracts.

Aiveen Hyland, Chief Operations Officer F&A

Aiveen has been with SouthWestern for 2 years and she brings a wealth of experience gained over 6 years of working within the global outsourcing market. As the Global Director with Capgemini, she was responsible for the transition and ongoing delivery of services to clients, working on global outsourcing programmes for clients throughout Asia and Europe. She also worked with the business development team on new global opportunities. Aiveen has previously worked as a Management Consultant running process re-engineering projects for multi-national clients.

Aiveen’s current role includes responsibility for all F&A contracts, overall account management responsibility for all commercial contracts and overall accountability for our Poland operation. Aiveen is an Honours Commerce Graduate of University College Cork and completed her Masters in Marketing in Scotland. She is also a graduate of the Smurfit UK Graduate Management Scheme.

Stephen Hegarty, Chief Operations Officer CRM

Stephen is responsible for performance and service level adherence for all CRM customers. 
With the Senior Management Team, he designed the operational structure with reporting clarity and clear objectives. He was also Programme Manager for all external and internal business process outsourcing projects, and with his team standardised processes with project methodologies for high quality repeatable delivery. Stephen has been with the company for 3 years and was previously our Head of Operations.

Prior to joining SouthWestern he worked for Standard Life in Dublin and Edinburgh where he delivered a new front-end CRM and Workflow system, managing both the development and the testing process with teams in different countries. As Operations Manager for FINEOS Corporation he managed the quality and implementations of multiple customer enterprise solutions simultaneously across Europe and North America. His extensive experience also includes reengineering CRM and Claims processes across all functions for BUPA UK.

Stephen is currently completing an MBA with Henley Business School where he also gained his Diploma in Management, and holds Diplomas in Project Management and in Environmental & Social Sciences from University College Cork.

Michelle McClafferty, Head of IT and Innovation

Michelle is responsible for the IT function within SouthWestern.  This includes guaranteeing a reliable communication and computer infrastructure foundation on which to efficiently conduct operations today and in the future, reforming information technology management processes to increase efficiency, and adding value to our clients enabling us to remain customer focused. She also leads the company’s Innovation programme, which drives innovation and thought leadership in the workplace, supports the needs of our customers and delivers advanced solutions in diverse business environments, providing added value through innovation excellence. Michelle has been with the company for 6 years, and was previously Head of Commercial Contracts, responsible for the delivery of outsourced services, including Customer Services to a number of key clients in the media, telecommunications, and financial sectors. She managed a team of contract account and function managers whose focus was on delivering services to our clients based on agreed Service Level Agreements.

She previously worked for Accenture Consulting, where she was involved in several projects with financial institutions such as the Bank of Ireland, retail organisations such as Littlewoods, and many government organisations including the Department of Agriculture, An Garda Síochána and the Department of Immigration.

Michelle holds a Diploma in Applied Project Management from the Institute of Project Management and graduated with Honours in a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Systems from University College Cork.

John Connolly, Commercial Director

John is the Commercial Director for SouthWestern a role which encompasses involvement in the business development, marketing and PR activities of the business. John has been with the SWS Group for 13 years and in his current role for two and a half years. John has extensive experience in the fields of business development, account management, strategic marketing and brand management in the outsourcing, services, food, tourism and SME sectors.

John also heads up the marketing implementation programme for the € 50m West Cork Business and Technology Park which he has brought from a greenfield site to a flagship business park employing over 1000 people. John is a board member of Enterprise Ireland, The West Cork Business and Technology Park and Cill Rialaig. In 2007 he was awarded a fellowship by the Marketing institute of Ireland for “outstanding contribution to marketing in Ireland”. He was instrumental in the development of the award winning West Cork Fuchsia Branding Initiative and was responsible for its domestic and International marketing programme for over three years. This is one of the leading regional branding initiatives in Europe and the first of its kind in Ireland. John is a former Board member of the Marketing Institute in Ireland, a former chairman of its southern region and was a sub committee member of the Enterprise Strategy Group appointed to advise Government on Enterprise Strategy going forward.

John holds a First Class Honours Commerce degree from University College Cork and a First Class Honours post graduate diploma in International Selling from Dublin Institute of Technology.He is also an honours marketing graduate of the Marketing Institute and Cork Institute of Technology.

Donal Reilly, Sales Director

Donal recently joined SouthWestern as Sales Director, bringing over 16 years of successful Sales experience and Market knowledge. His role includes managing the international sales programme across key sectors, and the development and delivery of key value propositions.

Donal previously worked in a similar capacity for Oracle, heading up their Applications business unit in Ireland and managing a successful sales team to out-perform their nearest competitors, with the company being nominated by the IDC as the no. 1 applications company in the UK and Ireland. Prior to that he managed the introduction of the Camstar application, recognised as the leading application for the Electronic and Life Sciences industries, to the UK and Ireland for Seabrook. Previous roles also include Senior Account Manager for SAP, Managing Director of Intentia, Sales Executive for Capgemini and Financial Controller for Celticron.

Donal is a Bachelor of Commerce Honours Graduate from University College Dublin and an ACCA Certified Accountant.

Wiktor Doktór, General Manager Southwestern Poland

Wiktor has been managing our operations in Poland for over two years. Under Wiktor’s management SouthWestern in Poland grew within this time to over 130 FTEs and continues fast growth, supporting Customers from Ireland, UK and developing business in Poland.

Prior to this, he worked in Call Centre Management, CRM, Help Desk, Telesales and Billing & Collection for over 8 years. Most recently he was Head of Customer Operations for Onet.pl (Internet Portal), Customer Service Development Director for Lafarge Gips, and Customer Care and Billing Director for Energis Polska.

Wiktor graduated from Warsaw Marketing and Management University with a Master of Management in Call Centre Management and Organization, and has undertaken Leadership in Action workshops and various call centre management training sessions in the UK, Sweden and Poland.

SouthWestern, Unit B, West Cork Technology Park, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland
Tel.: +353 23 8832800 | Email: queries@southwestern.ie

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