Professor Emmeline Hill

Emmeline is Professor in Equine Genomics at UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, where she leads an internationally recognised research group in equine exercise genomics, funded by Science Foundation Ireland. She co-founded the UCD spin-out company Equinome Ltd. with world champion racehorse trainer and breeder, Jim Bolger. In 2010 her UCD team published the research that described the discovery of the ‘Speed Gene’ in racehorses, coinciding with the launch of Equinome and the company’s first commercial genetic test. Equinome grew quickly into an international enterprise, with the support of Enterprise Ireland HPSU funding. In 2015 Equinome was acquired by the equine science company Plusvital Ltd., where Emmeline now acts as Chief Science Officer, leading the research and product development team. Emmeline has been recognised with several awards for entrepreneurship including the Nova UCD Start-Up Award, UCD Innovation Award, Irish TATLER Woman of the Year Award (Entrepreneur) and IMAGE Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year Award. She continues at the forefront of Thoroughbred performance genomics research publishing more scientific papers on equine exercise genomics than any other researcher worldwide and maintaining a portfolio of international patents for equine genetic tests.

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What people are saying

“Enterprise Ireland believes that Ireland’s economic success will depend on a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem which utilises all the skills, ambition and talent of a diverse population. Increasing the opportunities for women entrepreneurs and women in management is a key focus for Enterprise Ireland, and our six-year Women in Business Strategy aims to grow the number of women becoming entrepreneurs and leaders. We’ve set ambitious targets, including doubling the number of women-led companies in the export market by 2025, and progress is now clear. In 2022, 58 (more than one-third) of the 161 start-ups we invested in were women-led, up from just 8% in 2012. ‘Inspiring Women Entrepreneurs’ is all about reaching out to and supporting women who want to become entrepreneurs and build innovative businesses of scale, focused on export markets. I have no doubt that many of these will be leading Irish companies in the future and we look forward to supporting them on their journey.”

“KPMG has a strong track record of supporting women in business, so we are proud to be involved with Inspiring Women Entrepreneurs. We are excited to see all of the opportunities that this initiative will open for women who have a vision to harness their skills to be entrepreneurs growing scalable businesses. This tailored initiative will encourage more women to establish innovative businesses focused on growth with global ambition. In addition to the panel of Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs who will offer insights into their entrepreneurial journey, KPMG’s experts will facilitate a series of Inspiring workshops and share their expertise with this year’s ambitious entrepreneurs on a wide range of key business matters such as cyber security, corporate and tax governance, raising finance and much more.”