Unlike many other corporate finance advisors Rockfield has experience of building Fintech businesses from the ground up. We know the pains and challenges of raising capital, gaining traction, scaling and exiting. Our expertise is second to none in helping you find the right capital growth partner or acquirer for your business. Our combined expertise includes raising venture funding, strategic development in scaling, exiting, brand strategy, M&A, regulatory compliance and legal.
Kieron Guilfoyle – Non-Executive Chairman
Kieron is a seasoned entrepreneur having built and exited three Fintech businesses in the past 15 years. His previous companies include online and mobile payments company 3V (sold in 2015 for $20 million) Snapcount Ltd (sold 2008, undisclosed), a company specializing in fraud and control solutions for the credit card industry and GNET (sold in 2002,undisclosed) a retail banking “white label” online share trading platform.
He has raised over $50 million in venture and private funding to build Fintech businesses in Europe and N.America.
He has led and influenced many of the key developments in payment card processing systems design. He is an accredited inventor of a number of major innovations in the industry in the past decade. In particular the technology that underpins Mastercards InControl technology that was purchased from Orbiscom in 2009 for $100 million and the development of VISA’s payments system for the London 2012 Olympics.
Kieron has over 30 years international senior executive experience in manufacturing, telecoms and financial services working with companies such as VISA, Paypal, Telefonica, Lloyds, Tesco, Orange, and Alcatel Lucent. He holds a B.Comm(Hons) from University College Cork and a Masters in Business from University College Dublin.
Seamus Minogue – Partner
For the past 25 years Seamus has been involved in the financial services industry in a variety of executive roles in different companies. His roles included Chairman of Smart Transfer Limited a global payments and remittance service. He was also Director of Financial Services in Alphyra where in 2003 he and the team raised $50 million in venture funding to scale the business. Seamus and the executive team grew the Company footprint to 21 countries and scaled revenues to $5 Billion. In 2007 the Company was taken public at a valuation of $1 Billion. He was Chief Operating Officer at 3V Transaction Services and latterly at Safecharge Card Services.In other roles he was Regional Director for Europe and previously Managing Director of Alphyra Ireland. Prior to this Seamus held senior executive positions in the Bank of Ireland across both its Retail business and I.T & Operational functions.
Seamus brings a wealth of experience at both an operational and strategic level having scaled and exited Fintech businesses in both Issuing and Acquiring
Mijani Schonken – Partner
Mijani has over 18 years experience in the Financial Services and Payments industry in a variety of roles. She started her career in technology delivery for the likes of First National Bank of South Africa, Swiss Re and Siemens Business Services. From there she moved into senior management roles at Cointel, 3fifteen and 3V Transaction Services amongst others; during this time she developed and implemented a range or payment services including MasterCard Repower. She has extensive experience in the end-to-end delivery of complex financial solutions as well as driving the development and execution of a business strategy to maximize business results.
Mijani holds a B.Comm degree from the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and a MBA from the University of Wales.
Paul Sheedy – Partner
Paul is a leading expert in leadership,organisational ambition,motivation and capability. Over the past 30 years he has worked globally with companies such as Texaco, Bosch,Michelin, Mobil,Ford and Champion architecting strategic development at C-Level for the alignment, prioritisation and targeting of business mechanisms to deliver and exploit competitive advantage. In the process he has developed a deep understanding and experience of M&A’s including MBO’s and BIMBO’s.
Paul holds an honours degree in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from University College Dublin and is a Chartered Engineer MIMechE, UK. He also holds an MBA from the Open University UK.
Maeve Guthrie – Partner
Maeve is a senior marketing professional with over 25 years experience heading the marketing departments of some of the world’s leading brands including Pepsi,Nestle, Quaker and Walkers. As well as having advised global clients Maeve has also collaborated in developing marketing and branding strategies for companies across a number of verticals. Understanding consumers is at the heart of what she does and she brings her expertise in research insights, branding, strategy and consumer understanding to Fintech, all of which are essential in building consumer propositions and branding strategies in this emerging space.
Maeve holds a B.Comm from University College Cork and a Masters in Science from University College Dublin.
Declan Guilfoyle – Partner
Declan is a lawyer highly skilled in mergers and acquisitions, financial regulatory compliance,banking and commercial law. In a previous role he worked for Edwards Wildman, Palmer LLA in London acting for a wide array of blue chip clients and H.M. Government departments in relation to Commercial and Corporate Affairs. He has worked with the the Central Bank of Ireland as Senior Legal Counsel to the Markets and Stockbrokers Supervision and Regulation Division. Prior to this he was Head of in-house legal team at the IBRC where he led the transfer of $40 Billion in loans to the National Asset Management Agency. He is trained in financial compliance and intimately knows the developing regulatory landscape in European Fintech.
Declan holds a B.Comm from University College Cork, LCOI,Dip in Compliance (Hons) and is a member of the Law Societies of Ireland,England and Wales. He is also a licentiate Member of the Compliance Offices of Ireland (ACOI)
