The Silicon Valley 50 – Surnames D-H


6 Mar 2012

The top 50 Irish/Irish-American global technology leaders – surnames D-H:

Ed Deenihan, executive vice-president at NetApp

Ed Deenihan is an executive vice-president at NetApp, leading global support, quality and customer advocacy, and information technology.  He is responsible for driving efficiency and transformation initiatives across NetApp in order to optimize its customer and partner experience.

Deenihan has a long history of successfully leading new initiatives, including NetApp’s Professional Services and Corporate Quality programs.

Deenihan was previously the executive vice-president of NetApp Global Services, where he oversaw the strategic direction and worldwide delivery of technical support and professional services consulting. 

Deenihan joined the company in 2000 as senior vice-president for Worldwide Sales. While in this position, he successfully implemented an aggressive business strategy that resulted in NetApp’s expansion into the large commercial enterprise and government markets.

Prior to working at NetApp, Deenihan worked as president of the EDS Technology Sector Strategic business unit.  In this role, he was responsible for all marketing, sales and service delivery operations to EDS clients.

Before that, he was chief operating officer of the same EDS unit. He began his career at General Motors, with assignments in the United States and the United Kingdom.
 
Deenihan holds a bachelor of science degree and a master of business administration degree from the University of Detroit.

Ed Deenihan


John Denniston, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

John Denniston joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2001.

He has been a member of the partner team that conceptualized and launched the firm’s green-tech investment initiative. Since then, the KPCB green-tech team, including Denniston, has invested in more than 50 companies.

Denniston co-runs the KPCB Green Growth Fund, which invests in and supports growth-stage green-tech companies. He also works with stealth green-tech companies, and collaborates with partners in connection with other portfolio companies.

Before joining KPCB, Denniston worked as a managing director and head of technology investment banking for the Western United States at Salomon Smith Barney. He also served on the investment committees for Salomon’s venture capital direct investment fund and CitiGroup’s venture capital fund-of-funds.

Previously, Denniston served as partner at the law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, where he was head of the firm’s venture capital practice group and co-head of its information technology practice group. He also served on the investment committee for the firm’s venture capital fund.

Denniston is involved in public policy issues and has testified before Congressional committees. He serves on the board of advisers of the National Renewable Energy Labs, and he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

He has a BA in economics and a JD from the University of Michigan.

John Denniston


Caroline Donahue, senior vice-president, sales, Intuit

In her role at Intuit, Caroline Donahue is responsible for selling Intuit products and services across a variety of channels. These range from telesales, retail stores, resellers and alliances to mobile communication companies, including carriers and platform companies. She also manages a number of customer care groups, as well as channel marketing teams.

Donahue joined Intuit in May 1995 as director of sales, responsible for retail sales and merchandising.

Before coming to Intuit, Donahue worked as director of sales at Knowledge Adventure, an educational software maker. She previously worked in various sales and channel management positions at Apple Computer and NeXT, Inc.

Donahue holds a bachelor of arts degree in liberal arts from Northwestern University.

Caroline Donahue


John Donovan, senior executive vice-president—AT&T Technology and Network Operations

John Donovan is responsible for the operations of AT&T’s technology and global network, including the company’s best-in-class mobile broadband network.

Previously, Donovan was chief technology officer for AT&T, where he oversaw the company’s global technology direction and innovation road map, including product development, net­work and engineering operations, AT&T Labs and the security and intellectual property organizations.

Donovan previously worked as executive vice-president of product, sales, marketing and operations at Veri­sign Inc., a technology company that provides internet infrastructure services. At VeriSign, Donovan had responsibility for leading VeriSign’s global sales organization, driving the expansion of broad solutions offerings, and integrating a global professional services capability.

Before that, he served as chairman and CEO of inCode Telecom Group Inc., where he helped shape strategic direction and positioning for wireless network operators around the globe.

Previously, Donovan worked as a partner with Deloitte Consulting, where he was the Americas Industry Practice director for telecom.

He is chairman of the board of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions.

He has authored two books, The Value Enterprise, and Value Creating Growth.

Donovan received a BSEE from the University of Notre Dame and earned an MBA in finance from the University of Minnesota.

John Donovan


Rory Dooley, SVP and general manager of the Music Business Unit, Logitech

Rory Dooley has more than 25 years of experience in the global high-tech industry. He currently serves as the senior vice-president and general manager of the Music Business Unit in Logitech.

Dooley has worked for Logitech in Asia, the Americas and Europe, and has been instrumental in bringing Logitech to Cork, Ireland, in 1988.

He has also served as CEO of Linkvest (a Switzerland-based software services company) and as a partner in Endeavor Advisors (a Geneva-based VC fund).

Dooley is married and has two children. He now lives in the Bay Area.

He has an engineering degree from Trinity College Dublin.

Rory Dooley


Brian J. Dunn, CEO of Best Buy Co., Inc.

Brian Dunn is the chief executive officer of Best Buy Co., Inc., a multinational retailer of technology and entertainment products and services, with a commitment to growth and innovation. He assumed the role of Best Buy CEO on June 24, 2009.

Dunn started with Best Buy in 1985 as a sales associate, when the company operated just a dozen stores.

In 1989, he became a store manager and in 1990 a district manager in Minnesota. A promotion to regional manager for Ohio, Indianapolis and Philadelphia stores in 1996 followed, and in May 1998 he became regional vice-president of the northeastern region, leading Best Buy’s entry into that market.

Dunn took on the role of senior vice-president of Division 3 Retail Sales in March 2000, which encompassed all of Best Buy’s East Coast operations.

He then became executive vice-president of U.S. Retail in 2002, and president of Retail, North America, in 2004.

In 2006, he took on the role of president and chief operating officer of Best Buy.

Dunn also is a member of the Best Buy board of directors.

Brian Dunn


Joseph Anthony Flynn, co-founder and CEO, Levante, Inc.

Married to Jacqueline and father of four daughters, Shanna, Elena, Jenna and Christina, Flynn attended and graduated from Santa Clara University in 1992 with a BS degree in economics.

While at Santa Clara, Flynn participated on the baseball team and served as team captain. He is now a member of the Olympic Club in San Francisco.

Flynn is the CEO and co-founder of the fast-growing Lavante, Inc., a profit recovery and supplier information management company.

In 2009, Flynn received recognition as one of the 40 leading executives under the age of 40 by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.

Flynn serves on the board of directors of Work2Future, the Silicon Valley Workers Investment Board. He is both a member at large as well as the chairman of the finance committee.

Joe Flynn


Una Fox, Disney vice-president for technology (Client Relations)

Una Fox joined Disney in 2008 and has a specific focus on online marketing technologies, brand management and customer business intelligence.

Prior to joining Disney, Fox worked as a director of Partner Services at Yahoo, Inc. In that position, her responsibilities included revenue management for many of Yahoo’s strategic publishing and PC OEM partners.

Before Yahoo, Fox held several leadership positions at BearingPoint. She carried out an instrumental role in incubating a global consulting team focused on enter­prise search and was one of the first major system integrators to work with Google Enterprise.

She also managed the global Siebel alliance team for BearingPoint and prior to joining the Strategic Alliances organization, spent several years as a senior manager in KPMG Consulting’s global Customer Management practice, where she led multiple large global CRM and business intelligence technology initiatives for several of KPMG’s Fortune 100 clients .

Fox began her career in technology at Cisco Systems in Europe. She holds a bachelor’s degree in French literature from University College Cork, Ireland.

Read our interview with Una Fox.

Una Fox


Trevor Healy, CEO, Amobee

Trevor Healy is chief executive officer of Amobee, a digital advertising company.

Amobee is an early stage company backed by Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners.

Previously, Healy worked as chief innovation officer and board director of Telefónica Europe.

He also served as CEO of Jajah (acquired by Telefónica), vice-president and general manager at PayPal Inc., vice-president and general manager of VeriSign Payment Services (acquired by eBay), founder of CelNX (acquired by VeriSign), and general manager at Trintech (Nasdaq IPO).

Healy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business studies from the University of Limerick. He resides in the Bay Area and is a native of Cork, Ireland.

Trevor Healy


John Herlihy, vice-president, International SMB Sales, Google and head of Google Ireland

In his role as vice-president of International SMB Sales, John Herlihy drives Google’s international online advertising sales, providing online advertising solutions to small and medium businesses (SMBs) in more than 50 countries across the globe. 

In 2011, under Herlihy’s leadership as head of Google Ireland, the company increased its investment with the acquisition of Dublin’s tallest office building and announcement of a new data centre for Dublin.

Prior to joining Google in 2005, Herlihy held senior-management positions at companies including First Data, PeopleSoft, Adobe Systems, Inc. and Oracle Corporation. 

Herlihy began his career as a chartered accountant at global accountancy practice KPMG before relocating to the U.S. in 1993.

He holds a bachelor of commerce (honours) degree from University College Dublin and is a qualified chartered accountant.

John Herlihy


Chris Horn, co-founder of IONA Technologies, non-executive director at Nomos Software

Electronics engineer Chris Horn is co-founder and former CEO of Iona Technologies, which had the fifth-largest IPO in Nasdaq history.

He is also former president of Engineers Ireland, and former member of the Irish Government’s Innovation Taskforce and implementation group.

He has served as chair of technology companies and policy groups, including UNICEF Ireland, the Irish Brain Research Foundation, the Irish Management Institute, the Community Foundation of Ireland, and the Dublin Chamber of Commerce e-City working group.

 He is founding chair of the Irish Government’s Expert Group on Future Skills and the Ireland China Association, and chair of China Crest, Cloudsmith, Gridstore, SophiaSearch, CTVR and Dublin’s Science Gallery.  

Horn has been non-executive director of Chaco and Baltimore Technologies, and on the boards of Science Foundation Ireland, CR2, Sepro Telcom, LeCayla, Trinity College Dublin and its foundation board, and on the business advisory board of Georgia Tech Ireland.  

Horn is also board director and adviser to the World Irish Project.

He has worked on the IBEC national council and on its ICT Ireland for the provision of “open access” metropolitan area networks across Ireland.

Horn writes opinion pieces for the Irish Times and has served on award and competition panels.

He is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. After earning his PhD, he spent a year working as a civil servant in Brussels for the European Commission’s ESPRIT program.

Chris Horn


PJ Hough, corporate vice-president for Program Management, the Office Group

PJ Hough is corporate vice-president for Program Management for the Office Group, responsible for the Microsoft Office system, an integrated suite of information worker applications, servers and services.

Hough is directly responsible for the product planning, design, research and program management teams in the Office Group. He has additional responsibility to drive engineering standards and methods with other leader/partners across the broader Microsoft community.

Hough joined Microsoft in 1994, focusing primarily on Office programmability and Microsoft Access.  After seven years in program management, he joined the Office product planning team, based in Ireland. 

In 2003, Hough returned to Redmond, Washington, to lead the Windows SharePoint Services team, where he was the group program manager. He joined the Office Shared team in 2006.

Hough came to Microsoft from Digital Equipment Corporation, where he spent eight years in various engineering and consulting roles.

Hough holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer applications from Dublin City University and lives in North Bend, Washington, with his wife and daughter.

PJ Hough


Read more about the Silicon Valley 50:

Surnames A-C

Surnames K-M

Surnames O-R

Surnames S-W