John Hartnett - Founder & President, Irish Technology Leadership Group, Chairman, Irish Technology Capital and Irish Innovation Center

Hartnett is a senior technology executive & investor based in Silicon Valley.  He has over 25 years of executive level experience leading global sales, marketing, and operations. His career in high tech boasts some of the industry’s leading companies such as Palm, Handspring, Metacreations, Claris/Apple, AT&T, Digital Equipment, and Wang. 

He is founder and president of the Irish Technology Leadership Group, a network of global Irish technology leaders who’s main focus is to foster the links between Ireland and Silicon Valley in the areas of Innovation, Investment, Education & Entrepreneurship. He is also founder of both Irish Technology Capital, a Silicon Valley based venture capital firm and the ‘Irish Innovation Center’, a San Jose based launching pad and incubator for Irish Technology companies. 

Previously he was Chief Executive Officer at G24 Innovations, a leading thin film solar company.  He held the position of Senior Vice President of Global Markets at Palm, Inc., a Nasdaq public company, where he was responsible for worldwide sales, service and support.   At Metacreations, a web services software company, he was Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing & Operations.

He currently serves on Secretary of State Clinton’s Northern Ireland Working Committee.  He is also a member of the Global Irish Economic Forum.

In 2011, he was the 25th Anniversary honoree for the “Spirit of Ireland” Award from the San Jose-Dublin Sister City Program.  Since 2004, he has been annually honored as one of the top 100 Irish American business executives in the U.S. by Irish America Magazine. He is a member of the Wireless Advisory Board in the U.S. for Enterprise Ireland, on the board of the University of Limerick Foundation and is a key member of Limerick Institute of Technology’s (LIT) ‘Thought Leadership’ team. He is a member of The American Ireland Fund.  He is the current Chairman of the Board of Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG), a leading global ICT research and innovation center in Waterford, Ireland.

Hartnett holds a Marketing Graduateship from the Marketing Institute of Ireland & a post-graduate diploma in Finance from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).   He has completed the executive management program at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.