Philip is currently Chairman of Ilex URC Ltd. which was established to promote the physical, economic and social regeneration of Derry-Londonderry and has specific responsibility to manage and re-develop the former military base at Ebrington. Ilex is owned by and accountable to the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland (OFMDFM).
He served as CEO & Board member of the Digital Hub Development Agency from 2002-2013. The Digital Hub is a key element of the Government´s National Digital Strategy and aims to create a centre of excellence for Digital Media in enterprise, education and the arts.
He also holds other current Board memberships at Dublin Simon Community (Chair from 2004 – 2007), LERO the Irish Software Research Center at University of Limerick, The Liberties Community Training Agency and SligoMusicFest Ltd.(Chair 2005 – 2009) which runs the critically acclaimed annual Sligo Live Festival.
A guitarist himself, Philip was heavily involved in the Music Business in the late 1970´s/early 1980´s. In 1977 he co-founded and organised the Ballisodare Festival which was Ireland´s first 3-day weekend music festival. The festival ran successfully for 6 years and attracted audiences of 20,000 at its peak.
He moved to the computer industry in the mid 80´s when he joined Digital Equipment Corporation in Clonmel. During his career with Digital, he held a number of international positions in Geneva and subsequently in Boston.
He returned to Dublin in 1997 as Vice President/MD of international operations for Visio Corporation, a Seattle-based software PLC. During his tenure, Visio´s business expanded rapidly from €40m to €200m in revenue and in January 2000 Microsoft acquired the business in an all share transaction valued at 1.5bn dollars.
Philip holds an MSc. (Mgt.) from Trinity College, Dublin and is a graduate of Stanford University´s executive development programme. He is a member of the Marketing Institute of Ireland (MMII) and of The Institute of Directors (IoD).
