Dr Melrona Kirrane

Melrona Kirrane is Associate Professor of Organisational Psychology at DCU Business School. She did her undergraduate degree in Psychology at UCD and continued to The Queen’s University of Belfast for her PhD. She completed a degree in Business Studies (HRM) at the National College of Ireland and in 2010 was awarded an MSc in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from UCD School of Medicine. She is a Chartered Organisational Psychologist and is Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. 

Melrona is Academic Director of the Executive MBA and Academic Director of the Leadership Development for Women programme. She lectures to advanced students across a wide range of subjects within the field of Organisational Psychology, including Leadership, Selection & Assessment, and Change Management. She also designed and developed the new Leadership Development for Women programme which is operated by the Centre for International and Executive Education within DCU Business School. Melrona is Professor of Leadership at Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh and is visiting Professor of Strategy & Change at Donau University, Krems, Austria and the Technical University of Vienna. She was awarded an Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and is external examiner for the Centre for Innovative Human Systems at Trinity College Dublin.  She is Chair of DCU Research Ethics Committee

Melrona’s research interests include leadership, the impact of personality traits on performance and toxic behaviour in the work environment. She has supervised 6 PhD students through to completion and her work has been published in top-tier academic journals including the Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, HRD Quarterly and the European Journal of Work and Organisational Psychology.

Melrona consults to a range of organisations across the financial, legal and academic sectors as well as a number of government departments. She is regularly called upon to deliver management seminars on leadership, unconscious bias in decision-making and employee well-being. She has also been involved in the selection and assessment of senior personnel in the financial services sector for many years. Companies she has worked with include Vodafone, Kerry Group, Intel, Swarovski, CIE, Dublin Fire Service, Aegon International, EY, AIG and Hudson International. She is author of 5 annual ‘Leadership Pipeline’ reports for the 30% Club on gender diversity in management in Ireland.

Melrona is a highly sought-after speaker at industry conferences and was named in the top 10 ‘Women of Influence’ by Silicon Republic. She has been keynote speaker at conferences for the Small Firms Association, IBEC, Zurich, Ericsson, Eir, Women in Business Network and the Retail Federation of Ireland. Her work has been cited in The Irish Times and The Sunday Business Post and she is frequently a guest on RTE ‘The Business’ programme.