David McCourt, Chairman and CEO of Granahan McCourt Capital

He has founded or bought 20 companies in nine countries and is widely recognized as a transformational force in the telecommunications space. The Economist has describes him as possessing "impeccable credentials as a telecom revolutionary".

In addition to receiving the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award from the Harvard Business School Club of New York and from Ernst and Young LLP, he received the 2014 Award for Outstanding Alumni Entrepreneur from Georgetown University. McCourt was the first Resident Economist appointed by the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and the inaugural Executive in Residence for Entrepreneurial Economics and Innovation by Georgetown University. The American-Irish Historical Society presented McCourt with its gold medal in 2004, an award previously bestowed on Ronald Reagan, Mary Higgins Clark and Bono. In 2018, McCourt was awarded The Science Foundation Ireland annual medal for outstanding contribution to technology and innovation.

As the principal investor and chairman of National Broadband Ireland, McCourt is currently working in partnership with the Irish Government to deliver the country’s National Broadband Plan, an ambitious plan to eliminate Ireland’s digital divide, promising to deliver life-changing connectivity that will be the platform to empower nearly 1.1million people with high-speed broadband. The €5bn project will be the largest State investment in telecoms infrastructure globally and acts as a blueprint for other countries around the world.

McCourt’s debut book ‘Total Rethink: Why Entrepreneurs Should Act Like Revolutionaries’ launched in the Summer of 2019 and quickly became a best-seller with the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Amazon, striking a chord with young entrepreneurs looking to disrupt the status quo. His work in media has also seen him found television station Discovery TV in the Caribbean nation of Grenada and he is Emmy award-winning for his role as executive producer on the long-running PBS Kids educational series ‘Reading Rainbow’. He has also produced hard-hitting documentaries with stars including Angelina Jolie, Michael Douglas, Meg Ryan and Sônia Braga, and has worked alongside Spike Lee, LeVar Burton and Bill Duke.