Mary McKenna

Mary McKenna is an exited serial tech entrepreneur and angel investor based in Donegal 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 and in September 2023 she co-founded Ireland’s first and only women-led angel syndicate, AwakenAngels.

Mary was recently appointed as one of 2025’s 15 Royal Society EIRs after a competitive process and she is attached to University of Ulster until mid 2027. She is a distinguished visiting Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Oxford and 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 and she was proud to feature on Computer Weekly’s 2024 List as one of the top 10 women in IT in the UK.

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.