Cathal Garvey

Cathal Garvey has a diverse work experience spanning over 25 years. Cathal started their career in 1995 as a part-time brewer at Biddy Early Brewery, gaining experience in micro-brewing and beer recipe experimentation. In 2000, they worked as a part-time project supervisor at the Dublin Institute of Technology, mentoring students on their final year and thesis projects.

In 2001, Cathal became the Chief Engineer at NetTeam Consulting, where they were responsible for managing the development of the core product and deploying and maintaining NetTeam Server. Cathal also managed NetTeam Hospitality networks in various hotel deployments.

Cathal then founded Apperrific Ltd. in 2003, where they took on multiple roles including founder, architect, developer, system administrator, and project manager. Cathal worked closely with others and sub-contractors to cover areas where they lacked expertise, such as graphic design.

From 2015 to 2019, Cathal served as the Head of Engineering at LearnUpon, a cloud-based LMS application. Cathal was responsible for ensuring security, performance, availability, and architecture of the application. Cathal also played a significant role in the company's overall security, IT, and tech strategy, collaborating across teams and locations to help the business scale.

In 2019, Cathal transitioned to the role of Head of Infrastructure & Security at LearnUpon. Cathal built an Information Security function and team from scratch, achieving ISO 27001 accreditation for the company within 10 months. Cathal also led a small dedicated App Sec team, promoted a secure dev culture, and worked on establishing a positive security culture and SOC II program. In addition, they were responsible for maintaining high uptime of the multi-tenant app with an in-house SRE team and overseeing all aspects of the IT function.

Currently, Cathal holds the position of Head of IT at LearnUpon, starting in 2023. In this role, they work across multiple facets of the company to help scale the business in all things technology and security. Their focus is on scaling Infrastructure, SRE, DevOps, and IT functions to support the company's sustained growth.

Cathal Garvey attended St Flannans College and completed their secondary education in 1993. After that, they enrolled at Technological University Dublin and studied Electronic Engineering until 1996. Cathal then pursued Applied Science with a focus on Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin, where they graduated in 1999.