Maurice Mcquillan

The foundation was set up by James and Maria Murphy after business success in Lifes2good. The current primary focus of the foundation is on vulnerable women and children. The main geographical focus is Galway / West of Ireland and two developing counties. The foundation works with diverse organisations, from the Galway Rape Crisis Centre to CAMFED who specialise in girl’s education in the developing world.

Prior to this Maurice worked in the international development and humanitarian sector for 14 years. He was Global Security Manager for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) – a large American INGO operating in over 100 countries and prior to that he was the Head of Humanitarian Programming in Trocaire in Ireland. Both jobs involved extensive travel to far flung corners of the globe at challenging times. He landed in Port au Prince in Haiti, days after the earthquake hit that city, on Jan. 12th 2010, killing 230,000 people. In more recent times he spent much time working on the Syria crisis, in Turkey, in Lebanon and inside Syria in Damascus. In both CRS and Trocaire he delivered extensive training at board and senior management level.

Prior to working in the humanitarian sector Maurice worked in Irish politics and before that he spent a year in Bosnia with the EU, after the war, as a “Political and Humanitarian Monitor”. He is a former Irish army officer and was involved in border operations during “the troubles” in Ireland and was deployed in peacekeeping roles with the United Nations in Lebanon, Somalia and Bosnia.