Caroline Gaynor has been elected chairperson of the Irish Venture Capital Association, which marks its 40th anniversary this year.

She is a partner in Silicon Valley headquartered, Lightstone Ventures, where she specialises in biopharmaceuticals and medical technology investments. She replaces Gerry Maguire, general partner, Atlantic Bridge, who has completed his term of office.

Caroline Gaynor has been elected chairperson of the Irish Venture Capital Association.

The Irish Venture Capital Association is the representative organisation for venture capital and private equity firms on the island of Ireland. Last year venture capital investment into Irish tech start-ups and SMEs totalled more than €1.3bn.

'Complex and lengthy process'

Gaynor said that recent speculation surrounding tariffs has emphasised Ireland’s over-reliance on FDI manufacturing: “Moving pharmaceutical manufacturing is a complex and lengthy process, so I don’t think tariffs will impact in the near term. However, it shines a spotlight on our need to embrace a two track approach to industrial development with a more urgent focus on scaling indigenous start-ups, as well as incentivising FDI investment in R&D, which is far ‘stickier’ and less mobile than manufacturing.”

Gaynor joined the US VC fund, Lightstone Ventures in 2017, after completing the BioInnovate programme in 2013 and having worked on a number of early-stage medical device startups.

Prior to that she spent 11 years in the pharmaceutical industry, working for IPHA, Schering AG and Bayer Healthcare in regulatory affairs, product management, sales and marketing and market access/reimbursement. She is a director at Amber Therapeutics, ProVerum Medical, Carrick Therapeutics and Volta Medical.

She is a graduate in Pharmacy from Trinity College Dublin and holds Masters’ degrees in Pharmaceutical Medicine and BioInnovation from Trinity College Dublin and University of Galway respectively.