Mary Kirwan is the founder and CEO of Headfry inc.
She is from Dublin, Ireland. She has lived in Toronto, Canada for several years, as well as Switzerland and Sydney, Australia. She speaks several languages, and is a dedicated citizen of the world.
She has a unique background, marrying multi -jurisdictional legal expertise with a deep understanding of business and technology issues.
She is a qualified lawyer on three continents (Ireland/EU, Ontario/Canada and New South Wales/ Australia). She studied law at the King's Inns, Dublin, and Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto.
She has worked in the insurance industry, as a barrister in Ireland, and as a senior litigator at a leading blue chip Canadian law firm; she made a successful transition to practicing criminal law as a senior Canadian Federal drug/money laundering and wiretap prosecutor.
An interest in technology, surveillance, software quality assurance issues, cybercrime and corporate espionage led to a passion for IT security and a career in the field.
She holds a Diploma in Information Security Management Principles from the British Computer Society, and the
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.
She has taught Research & Writing to articling students at the Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto, e-security law
to postgraduate law students, and e-strategy to MBA students.
She was much in demand as a guest speaker in Ireland at academic institutions, including the Law Society of
Ireland where she taught in the Diploma in E -Commerce Law programme.
She is an expert in e-signature and cyber security law. She represented the global interests of Baltimore
Technologies on e-security/ regulatory issues, and participated on their behalf in the European body responsible
for drafting technical, legal and policy requirements for the EU Directive on E- Signatures (CEN/ETSI).
She has worked extensively in the security space- including the encryption/PKI market, storage security, and across multiple sectors, e.g. - the entertainment industry, health and finance, government, etc. She is also a specialist in the global policy issues that impact these fields.
Mary is the Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Cyberspace E-Payments Committee. She has a particular interest and expertise in e-payments, credit card fraud, debit card and ATM transactions, and has published widely on these topics.
She has provided strategic input to national governments, and to a broad range of financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies. She has spoken at conferences around the world, and appeared on radio and TV.
Mary is the IT security columnist for the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper @globetechnology. com. She is completing a mass-market book on IT security, with a humourous bent for broad release in late 2006.
Mary is determined to rid the world of technology-induced headfry- a scourge in our times.
