Havok boss named ‘IT person of the year’

22 May 2009

The CEO of Emmy Award-winning games technology firm Havok, David O’Meara, was last night named IT Industry Person of the Year at the ninth annual ICT Excellence Awards.

David O’Meara was presented with the award by the Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Conor Lenihan TD.

After graduating from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in economics, O’Meara held a number of senior positions with the Department of Posts and Telegraphs over a fifteen year period.

During that time, he developed the concept of electronic communications in the postal services, a first worldwide, and later went on to found the data network firm PostGem in the mid-Eighties. He lead the company as a subsidiary of An Post for four years.

In 1992, O’Meara relocated to the Netherlands to become part of the founding team of telecoms company AT&T Unisource, before moving to the US, where he held various senior management positions with software solutions provider Sterling Commerce, a New York Stock Exchange company, which became the largest company in the world providing EDI software and services.

O’Meara returned to Ireland over six years ago to become CEO of Havok. Under his management, the start-up company has expanded into the powerhouse it is today. The company was acquired by Intel two years ago for US$110m.

Havok’s award-winning physics engines featuring in the world’s top-selling games and most popular movie titles with every major publisher, film studio and video-game developer on its customer list.

By John Kennedy

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com