The Business Breakfast Networking Club

The Alumni Association hosted a Business Networking Breakfast in early June 2022, giving Alumni and former staff the perfect opportunity to meet up with colleagues and friends, whilst enjoying breakfast and networking before short talks from fellow Academy Alumni Steven Johnston – Managing Director, Adhaus Media and Claire Colvin – Director and Co-Founder, SimpleScaling. There was a good attendance from Alumni and all who attended agreed it was a great success. We look forward to hosting another event in November with details to be confirmed in the Autumn term.

We hold about 4 Business Breakfasts per year.

Please keep an eye on this site for details of the next Business Breakfast or

contact the Alumni Office at the School for more details.

In the 2017-18 academic year, President Martin Blake and committee member Michael McDowell decided to reach out to BRA alumni by holding a series of business breakfasts in the Belfast City Centre. To broaden the appeal of the event, the Old Girls’ Association was invited to join co- sponsor the events and former pupils Caroline Dillon and Laura Jackson joined the organising committee.

Starting in November 2017, several breakfasts were held at Ten Square Hotel, directly behind Belfast City Hall. The first event drew 30 people and attendances gradually increased. Each event offered alumni the opportunity to network and to listen to short and entertaining speeches by former pupils. The events were run with clockwork efficiency, commencing at 7:45 a.m. with orange juice and networking, followed by a healthy, self-serve breakfast buffet and two short speeches by guests with questions from the audience. Each event finished punctually, before 9:00 a.m.

Following the success of the breakfasts, the school invited the Breakfast Club to put on a careers breakfast and in March 2018, over 40 students and teachers shared a networking event with 9 guest speakers at the school. This was followed by a business lunch at the Europa Hotel.

Guest speakers have included:

Jacqui Berkeley:     TV Producer

Marty Neill:             CEO Airpos, Tech Industry entrepreneur.

Tony McAulay:        Author, broadcaster & peacebuilder 

Mark Regan:           CEO, Kingsbridge Private Hospital

Samantha Sloan:     Breast Surgeon

Angela McGowan:   Regional Director, Confederation of British Industry.

Kevin McNamee:     Finance Director, Denroy Group

Louise Brogan:        Owner of Social Bee – trainer and consultant in use of social media.

Sara Neill:               BBC Journalist. 

Tara Gaston:            Politics, picture editing and app marketing 

Caroline Dillon:        Retail customer service and management training consultant.

Clare McDowell:       Recruiting industry.

Gareth Davis:           Quantity surveying & construction industry.

Alan Bennett:           Architect.

Michael McDowell:   Marketing and Sales. 

Careers Breakfast April 2018

Breakfast Club, May 2018, Ten Square, Belfast