FUEL, one of Ireland’s leading entertainment and experience agencies, has announced the further expansion of its global group with the appointment of three new directors. With teams across the US, UK and its headquarters located on Dublin’s Camden Street, Keith McCormack joins FUEL as executive director, Jonny Boyle as director of brand experience and Gráinne Earley has been promoted from global experience director into the new company role of director of employee experience solutions.  

Founded by Brian McDermott and Jamie Deasy in 2013, FUEL’s impressive client list includes global heavyweights like Meta, Sky, World Rugby, KPMG, Indeed, PayPal, Paddy Power, Accenture, Lidl, Universal Music Group and Google, as well as national giants such as AIB and Leinster Rugby.  Speaking on his appointment as executive director of FUEL, Keith McCormack comments “FUEL has grown over the past 11 years from a small team of 4 into over 70 innovative experience and event designers, creators, producers, strategists and engineers and I am eager to join such a talented team of industry experts at a time of continued global growth. I’m honoured to join the senior leadership team alongside Jonny and Gráinne and their decades of experience, wealth of insight and strategic thought leadership, and look forward to the continued growth of FUEL’s global client portfolios across brand experience, employee experience, content creation and overall company success.”  Keith McCormack, Jonny Boyle and Gráinne Earley now sit alongside creative director Stephen Whelen, director of operations Rebecca Lawlor and co-founders and managing directors Jamie Deasy and Brian McDermott on FUEL’s executive leadership team, overseeing the overall management of the agency.

Keith McCormack joins FUEL in the role of executive director.  Having previously held the position of national head of events at Fáilte Ireland and director of Visit Dublin, Keith was integral to the successful development of large-scale events such as The Gathering, St. Patrick’s Day Festival, Volvo Ocean Race and  Tall Ships. Keith joins the senior leadership team at FUEL, the event organisers behind some of the country’s largest festivals including health and wellness festival Wellfest and family-friendly music festival Kaleidoscope which they manage in partnership with Festival Republic, Live Nation and MCD.  As executive director, Keith will play a key role in leading the growth and development of FUEL’s brand and employee experience, FUEL’s festival and events portfolio, group partnerships and will drive the overall vision and strategy for the company, 

In addition to his transformative work in the national festivals and events scene, Keith also held the position as CEO of Today FM, 98FM and Communicorp Media Music and Entertainment (now Bauer Media Audio Ireland) and has a proven strong track record in commercial development, sales and marketing. He was a board member of the St Patrick’s Festival for over five years and worked in senior marketing positions with Glanbia, Danone and Greenstar. 

Jonny Boyle has been appointed as FUEL’s new director of brand experience. FUEL have been delivering creative, cultural and connected brand experiences for clients worldwide for over 10 years, and Jonny joins the Dublin based agency to lead the further expansion of their  global brand experience team.  With twenty years of industry experience, Jonny is a frontrunner in brand experience strategies and the creation of groundbreaking campaigns, long running platforms and award winning work including Effie crowned ‘Chicken Fillet Roll Launch’ for KFC, 'Monster Loans' for the Irish League of Credit Unions and triumph at the European Sponsorship Awards for An Post Irish Book Awards and Sky’s ‘Outbelieve’ sponsorship of the Women's National Football Team. Notable campaigns and clients also include ‘One Day’ and ‘It's Not Just’ for Trócaire,  Just Eat, Three, Audi, Breast Cancer Ireland, Bord Na Mona, Leinster Rugby, 7UP and multiple creative strategies for Heineken including Heineken Cold Rooms, Heineken Sound Atlas, Heineken Green Spheres and Heineken Rugby Club. Prior to FUEL, he held roles of creative and strategic director at experiential agency ModernGreen and client partner at Core. Jonny was also the founder and creator behind food critic applauded pop-up restaurant Sticks. 

Gráinne Earley has been promoted to director of employee experience solutions after 4 years with FUEL. In her previous role as FUEL’s global experience director, Gráinne was the driving force in the group’s global reach having developed partnerships in over 20 countries worldwide and oversaw client relationships with key international accounts including Paypal and Google. Gráinne led Paypal’s 5 year global partnership with FUEL, growing the account across EMEA, AMER and APAC; managing multiple live events in over 10 countries across the world and 8 US States; running over 400 virtual events; and working on their global engagement strategies connecting 25,000 employees in 52 cities and 13 timezones.  Having played a pivotal role in curating holistic employee experience programmes for both domestic and global clients over the past two years,  Gráinne transitions into this new company position of director of employee experience solutions.  As employee experience partners for companies with over 250,000 employees in 55 cities worldwide, FUEL’s strategic approach has led to improved workplace cultures, organisational loyalty, increased retention and champions the importance of employee wellbeing in overall business success.