Galway company picks its team for major international expansion

A Galway enterprise that started out as a pet project to establish a fundraising tool for Irish Diaspora to send money to their GAA clubs back home is now primed for a major step forward in its international development.

Warren Healy founded Clubforce, the market leader in sports club automation, in Carna in 2009 – and this week he announced the appointment of a new leader and CEO at his company.

Noel Murray is the former Managing Director of Sales Operations, Asia Pacific, China, India & Japan at Microsoft and current Chairman of the Board at Clubforce.

He comes armed with a track record of defining strategy, leading change, establishing operational scale, hiring and developing strong leaders, building organisational capability and consistently delivering strong business results.

He said he was ‘delighted to have the opportunity to deliver Warren’s vision for Clubforce and to be able to innovate in an industry I am passionate about’.

“Clubforce is uniquely positioned to reshape and lead in this sector,” he said.

Warren Healy said the company felt privileged that Noel will lead the Clubforce team, describing it as testament to how far the company has come.

“Noel has a massive depth of international experience across multiple products, functions and markets and extensive industry knowledge from a long tenure at Microsoft,” he said.

“Our goal is to build a global enterprise from Galway. Noel’s appointment will be a significant contributor towards the achievement of this goal,” he added.

Warren Healy founded Clubforce as a pet technology project, but the demand for a complete set of secure online payments soon expanded the product features with interest spreading to Galway, then across the country and further afield to the UK.

Over the years, he has built an impressive network of clubs, sports associations, governing bodies and sport and technology leaders both in Ireland and internationally – partnering with Connacht Rugby, the Federation of Irish Sport, more recently STATSports and Output Sports. He has also created a technical integration with both the FAI and the GAA platforms.

Clubforce has transformed the way sports clubs are managed and is the leading club automation platform, used by teams worldwide to connect members, take the pain from admin and drive club fundraising forward.

And having led his team to raise €2.5 million in funding in February 2021 as well as receiving Enterprise Ireland backing for international expansion, he now assumes the role of Chief Product Officer at Clubforce.