The American Chamber of Commerce has launched a new mentoring initiative to help Irish companies that wish to expand into the US.

The Invest in the US programme, which is being run with the help of Enterprise Ireland, is targeted at Irish companies looking to expand operations into the United States. It will offer peer support and mentorship from a range of Irish companies with existing operations across the US, including Linesight, Applegreen and Netwatch.

The American Chamber has also launched an accompanying guide for Irish companies investing in the US.

Mark Gantly, president of the American Chamber, said that many Irish companies are looking to the US as part of their ongoing expansion plans.

“This programme and accompanying guide is designed to smooth that path by offering a network and peer learning,” he explained. “The scale of the opportunity is obvious but the risks going stateside can be daunting, so knowing how to find the right supports and where pitfalls may be will be immeasurably valuable to companies.”

In Association with

The American Chamber has established a panel of leaders from recently and longer-established Irish companies operating across the US to provide support as required to Irish companies investigating the market. The mentors include:

Joseph Barrett, chief operating officer of Applegreen

Dermot O’Shea, co-founder/joint CEO of Taoglas

Kevin Buckley, CEO of Spearline

Conor O’Byrne, CEO of Relatecare

Martin McVicar, co-founder of Combilift

Sean Sheehan, chief executive of Wisetek

Roisin Hennerty, managing director of Ornua Global Foods Division

David Walsh, CEO of Netwatch

Dan Kiely, co-founder of Voxpro

Ronan Murphy, CEO of Smarttech;

Patrick Ryan, managing director, USA East Region, Linesight

Liam Foley, director of strategy and development, PM Group.